Blog Posts

In 10 charts, Diana Baechle, Principal of Applied Research at Axioma, summarizes the initial market reactions of Israel and the Middle East to the Israel-Hamas war.

The publication explores the integration of biodiversity considerations in an investment process at a time of emerging nature-related risks for investors. The authors review what metrics are available to measure companies’ biodiversity impact, and describe in detail the four-step process behind the ISS STOXX Biodiversity indices and its results at a portfolio level.

Rene Reyna and Brett Boor of Invesco explain the drivers behind the choice of index underlying for three ETFs tracking technology themes. Ladi Williams from Index Product Management at STOXX joins the conversation to discuss what investors and product issuers want when it comes to thematic indices.

Time for our quarterly review of the ROOF portfolios, the sentient investment strategies built from our ROOF Score sentiment indicator. In this note we will discuss the performance of both the US and European portfolios in Q3 as well as year-to-date in 2023.

The derivatives exchange with the broadest index offering globally and the leading European index provider have produced some of the most popular and creative index futures and options since both started operations 25 years ago. We catch up with Eurex’s CEO and STOXX’s General Manager to find out what’s next for this successful partnership.

The current high levels of interest rates and the deep inversions of sovereign yield curves have given investors much concern about the potential negative implications for economic growth.

The international body’s framework is a step forward in the adoption of nature-focused metrics. It can help companies address biodiversity issues and guide investors in the construction of portfolios. We compare the TNFD’s recommended process to that of the ISS STOXX® Biodiversity indices.

No market remains in strong-form efficiency all the time. Investment decisions are based on forecasts about the future, which implies a certain degree of error – the so-called ‘known unknowns’. But when the macro situation becomes highly uncertain, the size of the errors around those forecasts increases, and conversely, confidence in them decreases. During these periods, when markets adopt a weak-form efficiency, human emotions start to dominate decision-making, especially when faced with new, negative, and unexpected outcomes – the so-called ‘unknown unknowns’.

The STOXX Global 1800 index fell 4.3% last month and the STOXX World AC lost 4%. Projections from the Federal Reserve indicate the central bank may hike rates further this year and cut them by less than previously expected in 2024.

The Magnificent Seven (Amazon, Apple, Google (Alphabet), Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla) make up more than a quarter of the US market, and their stellar performance has driven the US market’s outperformance so far this year. But this overblown market concentration is unsustainable and may result in a swift reversal, exposing investors to greater risk. Investors have been in a tough spot this year, having to choose between partaking in the extraordinary returns of the Magnificent Seven and avoiding the risks that come with an over-concentrated portfolio. Here we look at the impact of the Magnificent Seven on the US market through the lens of ten charts.

We love data. Our clients love data. But when it comes to truly understanding the risk-reward trade-off of an investment strategy, sometimes the devil isn’t in the details. In a whitepaper, “What are the odds?: Getting a better read on portfolio risk-return metrics”, we advocate for spending more time with the portfolio summary metrics as the first port of call, before jumping in headlong into more granular statistics.

Despite all the uncertainty surrounding key macro inputs, as well as a volatile geopolitical environment, the STOXX US Index is up more than 18% year to date in line with other major US large-cap indices. And quite notably, market volatility, as measured by the various time horizons in our risk models and VIX, has been steadily declining.