Recently, a number of reports highlighted a surge in popularity for actively managed U.S. equity funds in 2019. The main explanation for this trend appears to be the volatility observed in the final few months of 2018: market participants seem to believe active managers are better able to navigate more volatile markets. However, the data Read more […]
Style investing as an investment approach has long been utilized by market participants to group securities based on their common characteristics and risk/return drivers. Those common characteristics, in turn, help investors make strategic and tactical asset allocation decisions. The first-generation S&P U.S. Style Indices serve as effective underlying tools for market participants seeking a passive Read more […]
In the first seven trading days of 2019, the S&P 500 returned 3.6%, its 12th best start on record since 1928 and best since 2003. Also, the S&P MidCap 400 and S&P SmallCap 600 surpassed large caps by posting their best gains ever to start a year. Lastly, more than half the segments by sector, size Read more […]
The entire U.S, equity market lost on Monday, Dec. 17, 2018, meaning every one of the 42 segments by size, sector and style finished negative for the day. This was the second day in a row with losses across the board. From Oct. 10-11, 2018 was the last time two consecutive days with all losses Read more […]
In November, there was high market volatility in response to at least a few major events including the U.S. midterm elections, Brexit, G20 and Fed Chair Powell’s comments. The risk (measured by 30-day annualized volatility) on Nov. 30, 2018 for the S&P 500 was 20.6%, which is 3.5 times higher than its risk of 5.9% Read more […]
One of the main recent headlines has been the strength of the UK pound from the proposed Brexit transition. This brings into question how investors in the UK and Europe may possibly position themselves in the U.S. equity market. Notice in the past five days, the USD to GBP started from a high of 1.305 Read more […]
We recently introduced a new measure, capacity-adjusted dispersion, to help conceptualize the relative value of research across different markets. Intuitively, capacity-adjusted dispersion combines the potential opportunity for outperformance (dispersion) and the potential size of active positions (capitalization) in a given market. Exhibit 1 shows the capacity-adjusted figures for several markets, globally. All else being equal, Read more […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
