Before we dive in to this week’s topic, I want to remind our readers that there’s still time to register for our joint webinar with Qontigo on June 23 titled: Macro Matters, Even for Fundamental Managers, and we hope that you can join us. Now on to this week’s coverage. With today’s turbulent markets, the rise (and often subsequent fall) of the “meme stock,” and retail crusaders stepping into...

Before we jump into this week’s conclusion to our three-part beta series, I want to briefly veer back to an earlier topic I had covered during our recent macro series, which generated many positive comments and feedback from our readers. For those of you who would like to continue your macro explorations, my colleague Kevin Wahlberg will be co-presenting at a joint webinar with Qontigo on June...

In our last Factor Spotlight, we delved into the recent behavior of beta to understand why this measure has been less useful in helping investors hedge market risk. We highlighted the apparent de-coupling of beta from the general market based on the decreasing correlation of the Beta factor return to the Market factor return using US and global equity risk models from Axioma and MSCI Barra.

Investors often look to good ol' beta as the tried and true mechanism for hedging market risk in their portfolios. However, many have noted that lately, beta feels “broken”.

Hedging beta no longer seems to have the desired effect of mitigating risk in portfolios, and in fact, investors who have tried to hedge beta in 2020 and 2021 will have found major headwinds as the beta factor took off on...

If you want to hedge momentum, just go short Info-Tech and long Energy, correct?

Actually, not so fast.

This strategy may have been somewhat effective in prior markets; however in today’s market, the efficacy of this type of hedging strategy has been rapidly unraveling.

We can see this clearly by looking at the Momentum exposure, using the Wolfe Research QES US Broad risk model of QQQ vs....

Last week, we delved into ‘when’ macro matters by using the Axioma Macro Projection Model to identify historical periods when macro factors drove US equity volatility. This approach highlighted the Sovereign Debt Crisis in 2012 and the COVID market downturn as periods when macro factors became the leading contributors to volatility in the Russell 1000 Index. We also observed evidence of macro...

Hi there,

Last week, we established that Macroeconomic factors appear to show a meaningful explanatory power over sectors such as Energy, Financials, and Real Estate. We concluded our analysis by noting that incorporating macro factors into the investment process shouldn’t be disruptive, but can actually be supportive. This week, we continue our examination to demonstrate how both macro &...

Fundamental and macro-oriented strategies have traditionally been separate and distinct styles of investing. Fundamental managers take a bottoms-up approach to identify companies that they believe are poised for future success or failure while macro managers employ more of a top-down view to isolate broader economic trends and then select those stocks which stand to be most impacted.

This week we revisit a popular Factor Spotlight topic as we head into the thick of Q2 2021 earnings season. With a market bracing for a procession of earnings announcements, we will explore the various forms of crowding measures to better understand what names are most vulnerable to systematic pressures stemming from concentrated holdings across the investment management landscape. Before we...

The focus on improved US infrastructure has lingered at center stage this week, as the business and investment worlds continue to weigh in on the pros and cons of President Biden’s proposed $2 trillion American Jobs Plan. Though the plan has faced much criticism in Congress, there are still ambitious efforts underway to get a clean infrastructure bill passed by the end of the summer.