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Tag Archives: US FA

May 24, 2023

Persistently Disappointing

If you’ve ever read a prospectus (or, for that matter, an S&P DJI research report), you know that “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” At one level, if you understand that, you understand the most important thing about S&P DJI’s Persistence Scorecards. For the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Canada (with Australia coming…

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May 1, 2023

The Best of Both Worlds: Sustainability in Sectors

Sector-based approaches have historically shown they can be valuable for diversification, among other investor goals, but, until now, sustainability-inclined investors have been presented with limited options. With the recent creation of the S&P ESG Enhanced Sector Indices and the subsequent licensing of the Information Technology, Energy, Financials, and Health Care indices for a select range…

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Apr 26, 2023

Equally Weighting within Sectors: Impact and Potential Applications

The outperformance of equal weight indices is well documented, especially for the S&P 500® Equal Weight Index’s 20 years of live history. Equal Weight’s relative returns reflect the impact of several important index characteristics. For example, smaller-size exposure and (anti-) momentum effects together account for around 75% of the historical variation of its relative returns….

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Apr 18, 2023

The Same, Only Different

In the first quarter of 2023, the best performing of the 17 factor indices featured in our monthly factor dashboard was S&P 500® High Beta (up 12.5%), while the worst performer was S&P 500 Momentum (-3.2%). This may seem odd at first blush, since both indices are, in some sense, performance chasers—Momentum in absolute and…

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Apr 12, 2023

SPIVA and the Challenges of Active Outperformance

What are the three main reasons it’s hard for most active managers to beat their benchmarks? Explore findings from the SPIVA and Persistence Scorecards with S&P DJI’s Craig Lazzara including an allegorical look at what might happen if Craig challenged Michael Jordan to a free-throw shooting contest.

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Apr 10, 2023

Unwisely Concentrated

Anyone familiar with our SPIVA Scorecards will recognize that most active managers fail most of the time. Anyone familiar with active managers will recognize that they can be quite creative in proposing both excuses and remedies for this historical record. One of their most persistent suggestions, in fact, is that active management simply isn’t active…

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Apr 5, 2023

Examining Passive Performance at the Core

How does indexing work for large-cap equities? S&P DJI’s Hamish Preston and State Street Global Advisor’s Michael Arone take a closer look at lessons from 20 years of SPIVA, including fee savings, outperformance, and what the latest GICS® changes mean for sectors and industries moving forward.

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Mar 29, 2023

Revenue-Weighted Indices: An Alternative to Core Equities

As persistently high inflation, high interest rates and geopolitical risks continue to dominate the macro environment, the S&P 500® Revenue-Weighted Index, S&P MidCap 400® Revenue-Weighted Index and S&P SmallCap® 600 Revenue-Weighted Index have outperformed their corresponding float-adjusted market-capitalization (FMC) weighted indices by more than 5% during the past one-year period (see Exhibit 1). In this…

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Mar 28, 2023

What Drives S&P 500 Rebalance Turnover?

The S&P 500® undergoes quarterly updates—more colloquially known as rebalances—after the close of the third Friday in March, June, September and December. These updates typically affect the S&P 500’s composition and have turnover implications for investors tracking the index. For example, Exhibit 1 shows the S&P 500 turnover at each rebalance between March 1995 and…

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Mar 21, 2023

Indexing Bond and Commodity Markets in the World of the Upside Down

In the 80s nostalgia Netflix hit series “Stranger Things,” the town of Hawkins is haunted by an alternate world beneath. The protagonists battle monsters in what they call the upside down. For the first few seasons, the upside down wreaks havoc on just a few residents of Hawkins. By the last season, no one is…

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