After a long bull market, the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the financial markets and put the question of how to earn a smooth return stream over a long period of time back on the table. This has given rise to a strengthening of conviction toward environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and risk management. S&P…
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In January 2019, we highlighted several indices designed to reduce the impact of large equity market drawdowns. Here we analyze the same suite of indices divided across three broad categories: defensive equity, multi-asset, and volatility. This analysis simply reviews performance since the S&P 500®’s high on Feb. 19, 2020, through the close on Friday, March…
One of the most significant characteristics of the post-financial crisis world has been the global persistence of low, or even negative, interest rates. The entire U.S. Treasury curve yielded below 1% for the first time in history on March 9, 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, before the long end reverted recently on…
Recent selloffs in the equity markets and a significant rise in volatility signal an end to the 11-year bull market (Bye Bye Bull Market: Reaction to Coronavirus). While most broad market domestic equity indices have declined, the performance of the S&P MARC 5% Index (ER) has held up (1.84%). The answer to its resiliency lies…
Despite still ending the quarter higher, Q3 2019 was relatively subdued across asset classes when compared to the stellar performance we saw in equities in Q1 and Treasuries and gold in Q2. Exhibit 1 shows that the gains captured in Q1 and Q2 continued to compound in Q3, with the YTD performance of the S&P…
In this blog, we compare the S&P MARC 5% Excess Return (ER) Index with a peer group of 16 multi-asset 5% volatility-controlled excess return strategy indices currently in the market.[1] Overall, we observed that the diversification and weighting strategy of the S&P MARC 5% (ER) Index provided potential for upside while avoiding some of the…
Expectations have diverged in 2019, as equity markets welcomed a dovish Fed, while the bond market exhibited pessimism. In the second quarter, the S&P 500® finished up 4.3% despite ongoing trade tensions, while the yield on the 10-Year U.S. Treasury Bond fell 40 bps to 2.0% and the U.S. Treasury curve remained inverted. The S&P…
The first quarter of 2019 was one of synchronized gains across stocks, bonds, and commodities. Stocks soared, with the S&P 500® up 13.6%, recording its largest first quarter gain since 1998. Amid a dovish tone from the Fed, U.S. Treasury yields declined, with the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury Bond falling to its lowest…
Fluctuating periods of “risk-on” and “risk-off” mean that spikes in equity market volatility and large drawdowns are increasingly common in today’s economy. Exhibit 1 shows events throughout the current market cycle causing notable rises in volatility and large drawdowns. With more of these likely in the future, as our long bull market cycle ages, how…
Despite a rocky start and end to 2018 that negatively affected the performance of all the asset classes within the S&P MARC 5% Excess Return (ER) Index,[1] the index maintained a relatively stable performance throughout the year, although it ended the year in red. When you look at the asset classes in the S&P MARC…
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