Do ESG Funds Have Higher ESG Scores?
What do investors look for when they buy environmental, social, and governance (ESG) equity index funds? In principle, as in any fund investment decision, it could be higher financial returns,…
Factor Performance: Will the Comeback Persist?
Factors are the primary market drivers of asset-class returns. In the equity realm, only a limited set of rewarded factors are backed by academic consensus: Value, Size, Momentum, Low Volatility,…
The Active Management Delusion: Respect the Wisdom of the Crowd
“My basic point here is that neither the Financial Analysts as a whole nor the investment funds as a whole can expect to ‘beat the market,’ because in a significant…
Debunking the Myth of Market Efficiency
Sixty years after it was first formulated, the core tenet of the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) — that stock prices fully reflect all available information — is still considered gospel…
What ESG News Matters Most to the Market?
The following is derived from the 2022 Scroll Award-winning article “Which Corporate ESG News Does the Market React To?” by George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon, from the Financial Analysts Journal.…
Myth-Busting: The Economy Drives the Stock Market
Introduction Switch on Bloomberg TV or CNBC at any time of the day and there is a good possibility the host will be explaining the daily ups and downs of…
Is the Copper–Gold Ratio a Dependable Leading Indicator on Rates?
The Copper–Gold Ratio and Dollar Effects Institutional asset managers use the copper–gold ratio as one of the 10-year Treasury yield’s leading indicators. Indeed, as the spread between bond yields and…
More Realistic Retirement Income Projections Require Dynamic Adjustments
The following is based on “Redefining the Optimal Retirement Income Strategy,” from the Financial Analysts Journal. Last month, I explored how retirees typically have some ability to adapt their spending to…
How Do Smart Clients Invest in Themselves? Know Their “Why”
“Ultimately, there’s one investment that supersedes all others: Invest in yourself. Nobody can take away what you’ve got in yourself, and everybody has potential they haven’t used yet.” — Warren…
Is Rising Income Inequality the 40-Year Bull Market’s Hidden Driver?
Economists and market participants have introduced increasingly sophisticated models over the past half-century to explain the ups and downs of the equity markets. With some adjustments to corporate earnings measures…
