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Of Special Interest ...examining a significantly timely topic

Mar 06 2024

Research Preview: Lost In Translation?

  • Mar 6, 2024

We are curious if factor ETFs have provided downside protection in recent years’ selloffs or whether their defensive nature, shown by academic studies, is lost in the translation to live-money portfolios.

Feb 22 2024

REITs: Worth A Nibble?

  • Feb 22, 2024

Real Estate was the top performing sector in the final quarter of 2023, climbing an impressive 18.8% against the market’s 11.7% gain.  Signs of enthusiasm for the REIT industry have been rare in recent times.  While the S&P 500 gained 96% over the last five years, REITs returned a paltry 31% over that time.  We wondered if last quarter’s success signaled that it was time to take a fresh look at the group.  This report examines the investment merits of REITs as an asset class, using the mental model of evaluating “what you pay vs. what you get.”

Feb 06 2024

Research Preview: REIT Rebound?

  • Feb 6, 2024

Since the pandemic, investors have been leery of adding REITs to their asset mix due to fears that flexible scheduling and work-from-home will permanently diminish the demand for office space. While that view may prove correct, the magnitude of such a change is much less significant than some might suspect.

Jan 25 2024

Fundamentally Magnificent

  • Jan 25, 2024

The Magnificent Seven’s remarkable performance defines the stock market in 2023. This basket of the seven largest companies in the S&P 500 index gained an average of 111% vs. an average gain of 9% for the other 493 companies. The combined impact of huge index weights and outsized performance made 2023 one of the most top-heavy markets in history. Whenever assets outperform to this degree over just a few quarters, the valuation alarm bells start clanging. Could the fundamentals possibly justify such a massive advance, or is AI mania responsible for the outperformance?

Jan 05 2024

Research Preview: The Price Might Be Right

  • Jan 5, 2024

Whenever a basket of stocks with the market heft of the Magnificent 7 shows a price gain of 111% in a single year, the valuation alarm-bells ring loud. Is this gain the result of a mania for all things AI, or could the move be justified by equally magnificent fundamentals? 

Dec 21 2023

Weights And Measures

  • Dec 21, 2023

Depending on how you measure it, with a few days to go, it’s either been a superbly profitable 2023 or a year that barely crept above the 30-year average.

Dec 06 2023

Research Preview: The Blind Men And The Elephant

  • Dec 6, 2023

Will 2023 be remembered as a delightful year with +20% returns, or might it go down as a time when stocks lagged even a risk-free money market fund? We introduce this month’s research topic: The huge return disparity between the capitalization weighted S&P 500 and the equal weighted version.

Nov 15 2023

Are TLT Investors Early, Or Wrong?

  • Nov 15, 2023

Performance chasing is one of the most common behavioral errors made by mutual fund investors and represents one of the most heavily traveled roads to poor investment results.  Now, when we use the phrase performance chasing it is universally understood that we are talking about chasing good performance. That is why we are so intrigued with TLT, this year’s fund flow leader among bond ETFs. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF has raked in over $20 billion in new assets this year, but not by posting strong results. Rather, inflows have surged despite returns that are frankly terrible. Such an incongruity deserves a closer look, and this study lays out some of the key storylines behind this surprising development. 

Nov 06 2023

Research Preview: Going Long

  • Nov 6, 2023

One of this year’s most fascinating stories in financial markets evolves around investors’ atypical response to the dreadful returns posted by TLT (iShares 20+ year Treasury bond ETF). Despite its dismal performance, investors have been moving a tremendous amount of money into TLT. 

Oct 23 2023

The Case Of The Missing Mo

  • Oct 23, 2023

The momentum style factor has a long history of producing excess returns and is found in the security selection toolbox of many asset managers. This concept is regarded with such esteem that a number of ETFs have been launched to capture this value-added factor, including eight funds with AUM exceeding $300 million. The Magnificent Seven, the seven largest stocks in the S&P 500 index, have booked remarkable returns in 2023 with the equal weighted performance of this basket of tech titans gaining 88% YTD. The also-rans that make up the other 493 members of the S&P 500 have collectively returned a pathetic 1.6%. The Magnificent Seven seem to embody the momentum factor perfectly, yet momentum ETFs have been hugely disappointing this year. Not only have they failed to capture the Magnificent Seven move, but these ETFs have also badly lagged the broader market. This leads to the question, “In a seemingly perfect environment for momentum, what happened to the missing mo?”

Oct 05 2023

Research Preview: Show Me The Mo’

  • Oct 5, 2023

In a year when the Magnificent Seven has epitomized the concept of price momentum, investors who spotted that phenomenon and employed a momentum ETF to capitalize on the trend were not rewarded: Owning MTUM or SPMO not only forewent the tech titan rally, they both badly lagged the S&P 500.

Sep 21 2023

Hot Under The Collar

  • Sep 21, 2023

If uncertainty is the bane of investors everywhere, then the fear of large losses in a bear market is the boogeyman hiding in the closet. The threat of an agonizing downturn often leads investors to carry lower equity weights in their balanced portfolios than might be advisable, and even drives them to hold excess cash to avoid the risk of sizable declines.

ETF families have responded to this anxiety with a fund design that takes some downside risk off the table and may enable investors to tiptoe into equities even when they suspect a selloff might be around the corner. Known as “buffer”, “defined outcome”, or “target outcome” funds, these ETFs utilize an options collar overlay to trim the upside and downside tails of the underlying asset’s return distribution, thereby giving nervous investors a more comfortable way to pick up some equity exposure during riskier times.

Sep 07 2023

Research Preview: Checking Out Buffer Funds

  • Sep 7, 2023

Option collar strategies provide a defined outcome on the date of maturity, but the value from inception to maturity varies. In the case of an extreme market move either direction, a collar strategy will not capture the fullness of the fluctuation early in its lifecycle, but should reach its cap/floor value as maturity nears.

Aug 28 2023

Reditus Emptor Caveat

  • Aug 28, 2023

Despite skyrocketing investor enthusiasm, buy-write strategies are complicated investments with skewed payoff structures that muddle the interpretation of past performance, because returns depend on market conditions.

Aug 04 2023

Research Preview: Is Buy-Write The Right Buy?

  • Aug 4, 2023

Many investors appreciate the benefit of covered-call strategies, but we wonder how many truly understand the opportunity costs of buy-write funds over time—or under differing conditions. On the surface, these approaches are simple, but they have complicated payoff patterns relative to stock and bond funds.

Jul 24 2023

Land Of The Rising Stock

  • Jul 24, 2023

After years of wandering in the wilderness, Japanese stocks are leading the world’s developed markets higher in what has been a robust opening half of the year. The table shows Japan leading the world’s ten largest developed markets (as measured by the MSCI family of international indexes) with a 24% local currency return through June, easily outpacing the pack. Even as the MSCI USA index gained 17% by successfully “fighting the Fed” this year, Japan surged another 7% beyond that outstanding result.  We were curious to understand the nature of Japan’s spectacular run in 2023, looking to identify the drivers of this strong and relatively quick jump higher.

Jul 07 2023

Research Preview: What’s Up? Japan!

  • Jul 7, 2023

After being ignored for a generation, Japanese stocks are roaring in 2023. The Nikkei puts the S&P 500’s 16.9% YTD gain to shame with its +28.7% return. With developed international equities (ex-Japan) up a paltry 9.5%, diversification from expensive U.S. stocks cannot fully explain Japan’s surge.

Jun 26 2023

Be Contrary On Discretionary

  • Jun 26, 2023

The Fed’s June announcement of a pause with further rate hikes to come has extended the uncertainty of whether an inverted curve and persistent policy tightening will ultimately lead to a recession. The business cycle is a critical investment issue because the relative returns of many assets depend on the state of the macro economy. This study examines the Consumer Discretionary (CD) sector’s behavior in recessionary times, with the goal of understanding the typical performance pattern during economic lows in order to help investors position their portfolios for a potential recession.

Jun 06 2023

Research Preview: Recessionary Discretionary

  • Jun 6, 2023

While sentiment on the potential for a recession by year-end is split, there is little dispute that it’s an important question for cyclical sectors. Consumer Discretionary is most exposed to the business cycle, and we are interested in understanding its prospects as we head toward a potential economic slowdown.

May 18 2023

Sliced Breadth

  • May 18, 2023

The S&P 500 posted a 7.7% price gain for the six months ended April 30th, although this advance has been a hard-fought battle as gains have resulted from a narrow list of drivers. Style leadership has been concentrated in mega-cap tech names, such that the ten members of the NYSE FANG+® Index have produced 77% of the S&P 500’s YTD gain. Furthermore, gains over recent months have resulted solely from expanding multiples. Narrowness in either thematic leadership or price drivers is concerning because breadth is a useful concept in evaluating the staying power of a market advance. In light of this year’s market action, we are intrigued by the notion of measuring breadth not simply by price moves alone but by examining each of these two important sub-components individually. Does today’s environment, where price gains are driven by valuation increases alone, tell us anything about future market returns?