-
The recent trend in high-yield market spreads appears to relate more to concern about rising rates than the potential for credit losses. However, investors should be aware that the impressive recent performance of short-dated high yield bonds and floating-rate leveraged loans may be reversed if credit conditions begin to deteriorate.
-
Now that China A shares have partially entered some mainstream MSCI indexes, institutional investors and other stakeholders are raising questions about Chinese constituents’ ESG track records and potential risks from these new exposures in their portfolios.
-
Investors eager to write the obituary of the size premium might want to put down their pens. Small-cap stocks in developed markets outside the U.S. have been on a decade-long run of outpacing their large- and mid-cap counterparts.
-
Investors in the booming U.S. Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) market likely need to be aware of the risks: record tight spreads, deteriorating credit quality, and, as our expanded CLO data analytics reveal, selection bias risk.
-
Today, there are indexes designed to represent the performance of a wide range of investment segments, including market capitalization, geography, industry and, most recently, factors. They also are used as the basis for financial products, such as exchange-traded funds or derivatives. Much like Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” they play a critical, behind-the-scenes role, reflecting the entire market’s views on valuations, rather than those of any individual or group of individuals.
-
May. 24, 2018
On Tuesday May 22, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to EU-based Facebook users for the firm’s failure to sufficiently combat “fake news.” As the EU’s data protection regulation, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), kicks in on May 25, Facebook isn’t alone in facing compliance challenges.
-
Emerging markets may never be the same. On May 31, MSCI will include about 233 China large-cap A shares to the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. Inclusion at a 5% initial weight could lead to approximately USD 22 billion of capital inflows into these stocks. What might investors need to consider as we approach this milestone?
-
Our research shows how favorable ESG characteristics have historically had a positive impact on equity valuation, risk and performance. But many active managers may have concerns that using ESG data could disrupt their investment process and introduce unintended biases to the portfolio.
-
Due to the private nature of real estate, investors are often faced with making decisions based on broad market-level information or data relating to a rarified class of hypothetical, top-quality, perfectly located, “prime” benchmark properties, which, much like Peter Pan, never age.
-
Institutions and individuals increasingly invest through funds that track indexes. While index funds bring transparency and low cost, their critics claim that they allocate capital indiscriminately, hurting market efficiency. Is this claim supported by the evidence? It is not. Our analysis shows that, far from damaging market efficiency, index funds1 facilitate active portfolio management by offering investors diverse and efficient tools to express investment views and implement active investment decisions.