All Indices/benchmarks articles – Page 2
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White papers
U.S. Federal Reserve policy decision: securing a soft landing
The Fed’s aggressive 50 basis point rate cut, while unconventional, reflects a proactive approach to stave off any potential economic weakness. Despite associations of such large cuts with crises, today’s economic backdrop remains resilient. With recession risks receding and a favorable historical pattern during non-recessionary rate cutting periods, investors have reasons to remain cautiously optimistic about the market’s near-term outlook.
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White papers
Rising inequality: a global sustainability challenge that needs our attention
As the global economy grows, an increasing number of people are being left behind. This is more than a moral crisis—it’s an economic one.
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White papers
U.S. Federal Reserve – a close call
The Federal Reserve (Fed) will begin its rate cutting cycle this Wednesday. Market expectations are split between a 25 basis point and a 50 basis point rate cut, as the decision is complicated by conflicting signals of solid economic activity but a weakening labor market. Rarely have market expectations been so torn, so close to a FOMC meeting.
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Podcast
Amid the Volatility: What Are Investors’ Best Options?
Options, a seemingly daunting investment category, has been around for quite some time. Dating back to Ancient Greece, many investors have used Options as a way to mitigate risk. But how has Options trading evolved in recent years? What are the impacts of the upcoming Fed meeting and the U.S elections on this asset class?
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White papers
Rally broadening is underway
A mild US economic deceleration, interest rate cuts by the Fed and an improving earnings profile could further support the broadening of the rally outside the expensive US technology names.
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White papers
What Fed rate cuts mean for U.S. equities: A historical perspective
Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell has all but confirmed that the rate-cutting cycle will commence at the next FOMC meeting on September 18. Financial markets are currently pricing in 100 basis points (bps) of cuts this year—potentially equivalent to a 50bps cut in September and 25bps cuts in both November and December—as the Fed gears up to ward off recession. Its success in piloting a soft versus hard landing will play a key role in dictating the path for U.S. equities.
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White papers
A Framework for Value Investing
As providers of an active value strategy, our team has built an investment framework through study and experience that we believe can lead to persistent outperformance. In this memo we outline this investment process based on a compilation of insights published by our investment team.
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White papers
Why We Believe Quality Is a Good Guide for Value Investing
Value investing involves picking stocks that are trading at attractive prices as determined by metrics such as price book and price earnings. Clients sometimes ask us why Breton Hill takes a quality approach to value investing when so many of our peers are focused on distressed value. In this note we review the history of applying quality to value investing in an effort to improve outcomes. We then conduct an out-of-sample analysis to assess whether this effect still holds in the more recent decade subsequent to the publication of well-known quality papers.
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White papers
U.S. election: Policy and positioning
Heading into a contentious U.S. election season, investors need to avoid the noise and remain focused on the factors that will drive markets in the period ahead, including U.S. trade policy (particularly with China), geopolitics (particularly any impact on oil markets), and fiscal deficit management (given the CBO projection that the U.S. budget deficit is set to rise to 122.4% of GDP by 2034).
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White papers
2024 U.S. election: The importance of staying invested
It can be easy for investors to let their political persuasions impact their long-term financial judgment. However, allowing the outcomes of elections, particularly ones as polarized as what investors are facing this fall, to trigger an adjustment to portfolio allocations or even a withdrawal from markets entirely, has historically ...
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White papers
Global REITs: Out of favour, but rarely better!
The narrative on Global REIT price weakness in recent years has centred on the rapid rise of interest rates, headlines about the demise of the office, and concerns about the health of bank lending to commercial real estate. Whilst there is merit to some of these concerns, they mask the reality of a listed real estate sector in strong shape.
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White papers
Three investment ideas from earnings season
Quarterly earnings for most companies in the S&P 500 Index have exceeded expectations. Businesses continue to cut costs, pass on price increases to consumers and find new areas of growth.
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White papers
The Pitfalls of Investing In Factor Indices
Factor indices are a far cry from “passive” investing and may be ill-designed to deliver optimal risk-adjusted returns.
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White papers
The Grey Wave – Opportunities in U.S. Seniors Housing
U.S. Seniors Housing is attracting increased investor focus due to an aging population which will provide landlords with a demand tailwind coupled with some insulation from short term economic cycles. In just the past few years, the larger seniors housing landlords have recast the relationship with their tenants, and this has positioned those property owners to benefit from similar operational improvements already seen across many other commercial property sectors.
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White papers
Private Markets Update
Private equity performance has thus far held up well in 2023 as the market landscape shifted and key trends emerged across the phases of the private equity cycle: fundraising, deal activity, debt financing and exit opportunities.
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White papers
Are markets pricing in manufacturing’s comeback?
A significant number of surveys are pointing to a recovery in manufacturing. This is usually the most cyclical sector of an economy, and many economists choose to dissect it to interpret the economic cycle. In this weekly edition of Simply put, we ask whether this recovery can generate an upturn in corporate earnings.
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White papers
The Active Foundations of Sustainable Investing
As ESG and sustainability indices proliferate, we argue that sustainable investing is inherently an active management discipline.
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White papers
Taking Stock
As we reach the halfway point of an unexpected year for markets, what’s next for equities?
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Video
A tale of two indices
In our latest video insight, Fraser Lundie, Head of Fixed Income (Public Markets), shares his view on the diverging VIX and MOVE indices, and why he believes the market is at a turning point.
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White papers
The Fine Print of Indexation
A look at opportunity costs, long-term risks and complementary solutions.