News & Research

While FAANGs have long basked in the investment spotlight, the digital transformation accelerated by the coronavirus crisis has dramatically amplified the market influence of these tech giants in the US. In fact, the phenomenal run of FAANGs—Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (i.e., Alphabet Inc.)—has pushed the US market into the black year to date. […]

Equity markets have mostly recouped the losses of the downturn that started in February of this year, but at different rates. Notably, the broad market Russell 3000 index ended the first half down just 3.5%, whereas the small-cap Russell 2000—unable to benefit from the strength in such names as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and others […]

LIBOR is going. The FCA will no longer have, and is not seeking, commitment from the banks on the LIBOR panels to make submissions past the end of 2021.

Apple. Amazon. Microsoft. Alphabet. It’s no secret that tech stocks are driving markets higher and have been important contributors to portfolio returns. But what about their impact on value-based strategies? Not surprisingly, returns of both Value (defined as book/price) and Earnings Yield in the US model continued their run of underperformance into 2020—and it’s only […]

Investors flocked to US Utilities, a defensive sector that could help immunize portfolios against volatility caused by the growing coronavirus outbreak. Stocks around the globe fell last week, after WHO declared the coronavirus epidemic an international health emergency. Businesses were disrupted in China and internationally, amid broad efforts to contain the virus, with entire cities […]

In our latest paper “Minimum Variance: A Leg Up on Geopolitical Risk?”, we examined the impact of recent market risk events on a range of STOXX® minimum-variance indices vis-à-vis their corresponding global and regional broad benchmarks. We noted that geopolitical considerations—most prominently the trade war between China and the US—seemed to have a much bigger impact […]