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 Read more […]
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 Read more […]
How do the personalities of two dividend index portfolios look when reviewed under the “Factor Lens”? Using the Optimal Asset Management’s Factor Allocator tool, let’s review two strategies – S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats and the S&P 500 High Dividend Index. We can identify the average factor exposures of each strategy since January 1995 by viewing Read more […]
One of the common misconceptions in finance is that companies from the Information Technology (Tech) sector do not pay dividends. While this may have been the trend a long time ago, this has certainly not been the trend over the past 10 years. Over the past 10 years, within the Tech sector of the S&P Read more […]
Summary With Q3’s earnings season substantially complete, 2019 earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to decline on a year-over-year basis. After several strong quarters last year, the first three quarters this year have seen marked earnings deceleration. Providing 1/3 of historical S&P 500 total returns, dividends could become important when the market may be Read more […]
Dividends and stock buybacks are two ways that a company returns capital to its shareholders. Investors can benefit from both, but is there a synergy that can result from combining them? We’ve seen a surge in both buyback value and the number of participating companies in recent years. In 2018, 444 of S&P 500® companies Read more […]
Today we examine the impact of the members of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Class of 2019 on the index’s factor risk and sector composition. In our previous blog, we introduced these new constituents and discussed their quality ranking. Risk decomposition of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats using Axioma’s US Fundamental Equity Risk Model MH4 Read more […]
The December 2018 rebalance of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats added four new companies, with the changes effective at the open of Feb. 1, 2019. The new firms are Caterpillar Inc., Chubb Limited, People’s United Financial Inc., and United Technologies Corp. These four companies have the distinguishing characteristics that allow them to be eligible for Read more […]
As of Dec. 31, 2018, the passive implementation of dividend strategies measured approximately USD 141 billion based on assets under management (AUM) of dividend-focused ETFs listed in the U.S. This is a staggering amount considering that only 10 years ago the AUM amounted to just over USD 6 billion.[1] The growth in assets, as well Read more […]
2018 ended on a sour note for the S&P 500®, as the index declined by more than 9% in December alone. The drop-off resulted in the first negative calendar year return (-4.38%) for the S&P 500 (TR) since the financial crisis (2008). Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats®, which is designed to measure the performance Read more […]
