All Factor Investing/Smart Beta articles
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White papersReversal or Recovery?
When we think about reversals in the market, we likely think of brief turnarounds in performance. But what if it’s more? What makes a reversal turn into a recovery is a full-fledged long-term improvement in performance.
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White papers
Light at the end of the tunnel for multi-factor equity investing?
Multi-factor equity investing has underperformed in 2020 as a small number of growth stocks left the peleton far behind.
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White papers
How Indexing Has Simplified Factor Investing
Explore two paths to implementing quality in portfolios as S&P DJI’s Shaun Wurzbach and Pavel Vaynshtok join Andrew Neatt from TD Wealth Private Investment Advice for a practical look at using S&P 500 Quality Index and S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats to protect against short-term shocks and keep long-term goals in reach.
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White papers
The Market Is Up, But So Is Volatility
So far, 2020 has brought us a global pandemic, a coordinated global economic shutdown, and, in the U.S., a notably contentious election. So it’s no surprise that volatility has been, and remains, elevated. Despite all this, equities have fared reasonably (some would say surprisingly) well, with the S&P 500® climbing 13% through Nov. 19 since the end of 2019.
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White papers
Factor Investing and ESG in the Corporate Bond Market Before and During the COVID-19 Crisis
The objective of this paper is to illustrate the factor investing space in corporate bonds before and during the COVID-19 crisis and is the natural extension of our prior analysis on both the new alternative credit factors and the ESG integration in credit.
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White papers
Motions of the Market
The S&P 500® rose by 10% in the 12 months ending on Oct. 31, 2020, trouncing the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index by 9.1%, as seen in Exhibit 1. While such outperformance is not unprecedented, it does remind us of previous market peaks (especially in December 1999), and raises questions about whether a reversal may be in the cards.
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White papers
IPE EDHEC Research Insights Autumn 2020
This Scientific Beta special issue of the Research Insights supplement to IPE contains articles on
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White papers
Corporate ESG News and the Stock Market
ESG investing’s popularity has continually increased in the past five years. ESG data is increasingly integrated into investment processes. However, the information contained in ESG-related news for corporates has not been entirely exploited by institutional and long-only investors.
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White papers
Blog | Factor indexing: Harnessing smart beta for success in Chinese equities
Factor investing has proven to be an effective and efficient mechanism in recent months to make the most of the diversity offered by China’s fast-recovering stock market while the global economy struggles under the weight of growing coronavirus cases.
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White papers
Not a Coincidence
We recently issued our mid-year SPIVA® reports for the U.S., Australia, and Europe, and other regions will follow in due course. Although one can sometimes find exceptions in the short run, the long-term results of SPIVA can be easily summarized:
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White papers
Inverting factor strategies
Factor investing is a simple concept. Put simply, factor exposures drive the performance of diversified portfolios. With a construction technique that furnishes the ability to achieve precise and controlled factor exposures, it is possible to readily construct factor strategies—and their opposites—in a transparent manner.
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A Practical Look at How Risk is Shifting in Sectors
How can the relationship between sectors and factors help investors identify market regime changes and inform allocations? S&P DJI’s Anu Ganti and Hamish Preston take a closer look at market trends through the lens of S&P Composite 1500® data.
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Comparing Defensive Factors During the Last 3 Bear Markets
In the factor world of investing, Low Volatility and Quality have been commonly referred to as defensive factors. The following is an examination of the performance of the S&P 500 Quality Index and the S&P 500 Low Volatility Index compared to the S&P 500 during the last 3 equity bear markets. The graphs and data in this report are generated from the Optimal Asset Management’s Factor Allocator Tool.
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White papers
The S&P Global REIT QVM Multi-Factor Index Part II – Performance, Country Composition, and Factor Exposure
In the previous blog, we introduced the construction process of the S&P Global REIT Quality, Value & Momentum (QVM) Multi-Factor Index. In this blog, we look into the empirical results of the strategy.
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White papers
The S&P Global REIT QVM Multi-Factor Index Part I – Strategy Construction Process
In this blog (and in a subsequent post), we will introduce the S&P Global REIT Quality, Value & Momentum (QVM) Multi-Factor Index. This index integrates individual quality, value, and momentum factor scores into one composite and is designed to capture multi-factor equity premia. In essence, the strategy seeks to include companies with the following characteristics: solid financial strength combined with steady fund flow from operation (FFO) growth, attractive valuation, and lasting risk-adjusted momentum.
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White papers
Measuring and Managing Carbon Risk in Investment Portfolios
This article studies the impact of carbon risk on stock pricing. To address this, we consider the seminal approach of Görgen et al. (2019), who proposed estimating the carbon financial risk of equities by their carbon beta. To achieve this, the primary task is to develop a brown-minus-green (or BMG) risk factor, similar to Fama and French (1992). Secondly, we must estimate the carbon beta using a multi-factor model.
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White papers
Conviction, Confidence, and Courage
Never wish to show courage, a wise man once counseled; courage can be displayed only in circumstances where one’s natural instinct is to be afraid, and fear is an unpleasant emotion. This principle, with obvious qualifications, applies to investment management. Successful portfolio management can require holding positions when one’s natural instinct is to sell.
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White papers
How Does Passive Investing Work in Uncertain Times?
Many advisors feel that their favorite active manager will guide them through market volatility and limit drawdowns during times of market stress. But is that how things played out at the beginning of 2020? S&P DJI’s Brent Kopp and Berlinda Liu take a closer look at COVID-19’s impact on active vs. passive performance.
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White papers
Observing a Regime Change
In politics, “regime change” denotes the replacement of one governmental structure with another; in economics, we use the same term to indicate a shift in the interactions of various parts of the economic or financial system. Political regime changes are easy to identify (after all, a military coup is hard to miss). Defining when an economic regime change has occurr
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White papers
Battle of Factors: Low Volatility versus High Beta
2020 has surprised us all with a number of firsts. Not only did we witness wild swings in the market from one quarter to the next, we also saw an unusual performance of commonly followed factors. While this blog will not attempt to predict factor performance, it will address recent factor behavior and put this behavior into historical context.
