The S&P Style Indices and the S&P Pure Style Indices have distinct long-term performance differences and risk/return characteristics. We highlighted those in a prior blog where we reviewed the two approaches to constructing traditional style and pure style indices. What are the drivers of the return differentials between pure style and style? We know that Read more […]
Despite a rocky start and end to 2018 that negatively affected the performance of all the asset classes within the S&P MARC 5% Excess Return (ER) Index,[1] the index maintained a relatively stable performance throughout the year, although it ended the year in red. When you look at the asset classes in the S&P MARC Read more […]
We’ve previously observed that we can view the world through both a factor and a sector lens, but what about overlaying sectors and style? This is indeed possible, as sectors can serve as implementation vehicles to achieve a particular view on style. Using value and growth scores that are reset annually for every constituent within Read more […]
As the ball dropped this New Year’s Eve, most investors were more than happy to bid adieu to what proved to be a volatile end to 2018. The fourth quarter began with the October sell-off, which was just the start of a highly volatile quarter. The S&P 500® fell almost 7% in October alone, with Read more […]
Equities have historically offered promising growth potential, but we have seen time and again how suddenly and severely the equity markets can be affected by events that are difficult to predict, and 2019 is not likely to be an exception. Losses can have a greater impact on portfolios than gains because the money remaining after Read more […]
This blog post was co-authored with Matthew Brown, President and COO, MSR Investments, LLC. We believe there are two critical criteria an index must meet to be considered a benchmark: 1) it must be easy to implement as a viable investment alternative to managers that pursue the same strategy, and 2) it must define only Read more […]
Traditionally known for spooky ghosts and witches, October was also a scary month for investors. In spite of an end-of-month rally, global stocks recorded their worst monthly loss since 2011, wiping out USD 5 trillion of investor value. Furthermore, investors were spooked by a rare simultaneous drop in bond prices. In short, this was not Read more […]
In earlier posts, we analyzed the historical performance, risk contribution versus capital allocation, and return attribution and leverage of the S&P Risk Parity Indices. The results demonstrate that this indices in this series could potentially serve as benchmarks to measure the performance of active risk parity strategies. In this post, we will dig deeper into Read more […]
My earlier blog showed that equal risk allocation is different from equal capital allocation. The S&P Risk Parity Indices had roughly equal risk contribution from all three asset classes, while about 60% of the capital was allocated to fixed income. The historical performance of each asset class also showed that equal risk allocation did not Read more […]
In recent years at many investment conferences I heard that many public pension plans face underfunding challenges, and they are very interested in investments with strong returns and moderate risk. While past performance is not a guarantee of future results, the Cboe S&P 500 30-Delta BuyWrite Index (BXMDSM) has shown higher returns and lower volatility Read more […]
