Extended-lister
Showing 41 - 50 of 70 entries
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MSCI Blog
What has affected minimum volatility index performance?As we head further into 2019, some of last year’s concerns, including market volatility and interest-rate uncertainty, continue to occupy investors’ minds. With the assumption that rates-related concerns continue and uncertainty looms in the global equity markets, the question is how minimum volatility indexes behaved in an environment dominated by these two opposing forces.
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MSCI Blog
Factor Investing Goes Multi-Asset ClassFactor investing is now going multi-asset class: to factor-based asset allocation and systematic strategy factors that push beyond equity selection.
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MSCI Blog
What drives the capacity of factor index strategies?As factor investing becomes increasingly “business as usual,” institutional investors have become keenly interested in the ability of strategies that replicate factor indexes to persistently capture desired exposures without compromising exposure to the target factor. We illustrate six index design approaches that can be used to tackle this challenge.
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MSCI Blog
Hedge Fund Returns: Is Fund Selection Important?Many investors view hedge funds as a way to generate returns uncorrelated with other parts of the portfolio. We found that performance and sources of performance varied, but that exposure to traditional and factor investing strategies accounted for the majority of a typical hedge fund’s returns. Should hedge fund investors pay particular attention to fund selection?
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MSCI Blog
How can active managers add factors to the portfolio?Discretionary managers use fundamental analysis to select stocks and construct portfolios that seek to beat the market. These managers face substantial headwinds in the current environment. From a business perspective, they are under pressure to reduce cost and improve performance. The market environment has also been challenging, as high correlations between stocks and the dominance of a handful of large technology companies have made it harder to generate alpha from stock selection.
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MSCI Blog
Equity valuations resist running with the bullsThe U.S. bull market is now the longest in history, leading the way for strong global equity returns over the 10 years since the financial crisis. What does this mean for valuations? We found that while they are high, they have not reached extreme levels. What’s more, there are distinct valuation characteristics across regions, sectors and factors that may create potential investment opportunities.
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MSCI Blog
All FAANGs are Not Created EqualFAANG stocks (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) make up nearly 40% of the NASDAQ 100 index, and smaller but significant weights in many others. Commonly grouped as tech stocks or growth companies, it seems reasonable to assume they share many similar characteristics. However, when examined through the lens of performance-driving factors, their characteristics are far from homogeneous.
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MSCI Blog
What is Going on With Factor Returns?Value and momentum factors typically move in opposite directions—that is, when one outperforms the market, the other usually underperforms. In June, however, both factors underperformed the market, leading some observers to question whether this change in market behavior is impairing quantitative strategies.
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MSCI Blog
Speed bump or regime shift? Deconstructing the recent spike in equity market volatilityThe week of Feb. 5 witnessed a return of market volatility not seen since the days of the euro crisis in 2011. After hovering near 10% for most of the past year, the level of the VIX briefly topped 50%. What caused the spike?
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MSCI Blog
Do Factors Stand Up to FAANG?Large U.S. technology companies, the so-called FAANG, dominated the U.S. stock market in the last few years and had a significant impact on many investment strategies. These companies have been underrepresented in most factor-based strategies due to their unattractive factor characteristics. Have factor investors suffered from not investing in these stocks?