2019 was a remarkable year for risky assets. All benchmarks tracked in the SPIVA U.S. Year-End 2019 Scorecard delivered positive returns. Information Technology-heavy and more internationally diversified companies of the S&P 500® pushed the index to its second- and fourth-highest annual return since 2001 and 1990, respectively. In addition, the S&P MidCap 400® (26.2%) and Read more […]
The last few weeks have definitely felt like a “where were you when…?” moment as coronavirus fears spread around the world and many people’s day-to-day lives have been disrupted. Amid the anxiety and disruption, global financial markets nosedived, sending all major equity indices tumbling, VIX® soaring to levels not seen since the financial crisis, and Read more […]
Over the last few years, mega-cap companies have played an increasingly important role in driving U.S. equity market returns. Indeed, the five largest names in the S&P 500® accounted for 16.8% of the index at the end of last year, the highest year-end weight since 1982 and higher than the 16.6% reached at the end Read more […]
After a pullback in the market over the last week, it remains to be seen if U.S. equities will finish the month in the black. However, as of yesterday’s close, the S&P Composite 1500, which represents over 90% of U.S. equity capitalization, was up 1.21% since the turn of the year as large cap gains Read more […]
The S&P Composite 1500 measures the U.S. equity market by combining three world-renowned benchmarks – the S&P 500®, S&P MidCap 400®, and S&P SmallCap 600® – which together encompass approximately 90% of U.S. equity market capitalization. With 2019 in the rear-view mirror, it is obvious that last year was extremely positive for U.S. equities: the Read more […]
With 2019 coming to a close, market participants may use the time to evaluate portfolio performance and to assess what changes (if any) they would like to make based on return expectations and the market outlook. While the future is uncertain – hindsight really will be 2020 when it comes to evaluating next year’s returns Read more […]
Yesterday marked 25 years since the launch of the S&P SmallCap 600. Since then, the small-cap equity benchmark delivered an annualized total return of nearly 11% and has become the basis for many investment strategies; around USD 73 billion was indexed to the S&P SmallCap 600 as of the end of 2018. And if we Read more […]
We recently published the 10-year anniversary edition of the paper “A Tale of Two Small-Cap Benchmarks,” which gives insight into why the S&P SmallCap 600® outperformed the Russell 2000, historically.[1] Our latest paper also showed that, in the period from Dec. 31, 2002, to Dec. 31, 2018, profitable companies typically outperformed unprofitable companies in the Read more […]
In my earlier blog, we explored the effect of size on active large-cap equity funds’ performance. We ranked all long-only active large-cap equity funds by their size at the beginning of the observation period and divided them into quartiles, with the first quartile being the largest and the fourth being the smallest. We found that, Read more […]
Market participants generally expect risk/return profiles to be similar across broad market indices representing the same universe. However, indices’ risk/return characteristics can vary substantially. As of Aug. 31, 2019, the S&P SmallCap 600® returned 10.21% per year since year-end 1993, while the Russell 2000 returned 8.53%. So why is there a substantial risk/return gap between Read more […]
