After the S&P 500 logged its 9th worst Oct. on record, losing 6.9%, it has bounced back 2.6% month-to-date through Nov. 9, 2018. Though the monthly returns for the eight Novembers following the historically bad Octobers were only positive twice – in 1978 (President Jimmy Carter midterm year) and 1933 – the fact there was Read more […]
How much should a portfolio manager be willing to pay for research? This is a question any manager has to answer, but it has recently become more pertinent as newly imposed European rules require the costs of investment research to be unbundled from trading. Here is a brief overview of a stylized framework for estimating Read more […]
The S&P 500 is down 9.4% month-to-date as of the close on Oct. 29, 2018, and is on pace to record its worst Oct. since 2008 and its sixth worst Oct. based on history since 1928. The other years when the S&P 500 that lost more in Oct. than in Oct. 2018 (so far) happened Read more […]
“The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.” – Aristotle Recent volatility in equity markets may be unsettling to some investors. Skittishness about the stock market is understandable, especially in the context of the serenity in 2017. Volatility levels are relatively higher and risk is on the radar of Read more […]
The latest results from the SPIVA U.S. Mid-Year 2018 Scorecard show improvement in the relative performance of actively managed domestic equity funds against their respective benchmarks. During the one-year period ending June 30, 2018, the overall percentage of all domestic funds outperforming the S&P Composite 1500® increased to 42.02%, compared with six months prior (36.57%). Read more […]
The domestic equity market, as measured by the S&P Composite 1500®, ended Q3 2018 with a gain of 10.47%. Over the past 10 years, the S&P Composite 1500 had annualized returns of 12.05%, showing an impressive bullish run since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Perhaps reflecting the market environment, growth-oriented investment styles, such as momentum Read more […]
“Data! Data! Data!” he cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without clay.” – Sherlock Holmes (in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”) Despite yesterday’s hand wringing loss for equity markets— the S&P 500 dropped 3.3%—the index is still up 5.8% year to date 2018. Nevertheless, losing in one day a third of what the equity market Read more […]
Yesterday’s decline in the U.S. and global stock markets is striking not simply because of its magnitude but also because it represents a radical reversal of factor returns from the first three quarters of 2018. Readers of our quarterly factor dashboard will recognize this graph, which shows the total return of the S&P 500 and Read more […]
In this bull market, by some measures the longest running in U.S. history, investors may wonder what its prospects for continuation are. Judging by rolling quarterly 10-year annualized returns, the S&P 500® does not necessarily seem over-extended. As Exhibit 1 shows, since the end of World War II, large retracements followed lengthy periods of greater-than-10% Read more […]
Despite escalating trading tensions between U.S. and China that built through Sep., large caps were largely unaffected. The aging Bull market (since March 9, 2009) showed no signs of stopping, as the S&P 500 posted new highs and posted an annualized 16.51% equity return and 18.91% with dividends, as mentioned by Howard Silverblatt in Market Read more […]
