In our earlier blog, “How Important Are Earnings Revisions Signals for Fundamental Factor Strategies in Asia?”, we discussed that the signals from earnings revisions were important for fundamental factor strategies applied across broad markets. They reduced the risk and enhanced the return of the comparable factor portfolios, across the majority of markets. In our research Read more […]
In April, the S&P 500 (TR) gained 0.4%, ending its first consecutive monthly loss in almost two years, but the index is still down 0.4% year-to-date (ending April 30, 2018.) Mid caps are also down for the year, -1.0%, after the S&P 400 (TR) lost 0.3% in April. However, Small caps pushed into positive territory, up now 1.6% Read more […]
The S&P 500 just posted its best January since 1997, and also had its highest measured optimism, a 6.6% risk premium, since October 2015. Whether history repeats itself is yet to be seen, but just a few days after that high risk premium, the stock market topped on Nov. 3, 2015. By December investors saw the Read more […]
The first estimate of US GDP for the fourth quarter is set to be released this Friday and the median forecast is 3.0% according to MarketWatch, which if met or exceeded will be the first time 3 consecutive quarters to show at least 3% growth since the first quarter of 2005. While this is supportive Read more […]
Though the large-caps continue to rally more than the small-caps on the back of their biggest annual outperformance since 1999, small-caps persistently outperform mid and large-caps over longer periods of time, as shown below in the chart and in part 2 of this blog series. This has been shown by many researchers, most notably by Read more […]
In December, the S&P 500 (TR) gained 1.1%, posting its 14th consecutive monthly gain, the longest monthly streak on record (data since Sep. 1989.) Also, the S&P MidCap 400 (TR) gained 0.2%, while the S&P SmallCap 600 (TR) lost 0.5%, bringing the 2017 performance to a respective 21.8%, 16.2% and 13.2% for the S&P 500 (TR), S&P MidCap 400 Read more […]
Rising interest rates certainly has become a central investment theme going into 2017. The 10-Year Treasury yield closed at 2.48% on Jan. 27, 2017, representing an increase of nearly 103 bps from six months ago. Research has shown that equities tend to perform better following a rate hike, if inflation levels are moderate. However, return Read more […]
I have a confession – earning the market return minus expenses does not feel very enticing. Reasonably well-run index funds will do just that, and probably land within the 2nd or 3rd performance quartile year in and year out. But is that the best I can do? Where’s the satisfaction? My inner Captain Kirk wants Read more […]
At S&P Dow Jones Indices, our research indicates that indexing small-cap and mid-cap stocks works as well as it does for large-cap stocks, even though the large-cap segment may be more efficient than its junior siblings. Nevertheless, the popular belief that indexing works better for large-caps is well-entrenched and widely endorsed by advisors, consultants, and Read more […]
