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Anu Ganti

Senior Director, Index Investment Strategy, S&P Dow Jones Indices

Anu R. Ganti is Senior Director, Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). The index investment strategy team provides research and commentary on the entire S&P DJI product set, including U.S. and global equities, commodities, fixed income, and economic indices.
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May 27, 2020

Symbiotic Sentiments

Sectors and factors are different ways of viewing the world, but they are not mutually exclusive.  We find an example of such a close, symbiotic relationship between the technology sector and the quality factor.  Exhibit 1 shows that the S&P 500 Information Technology index has a strong tilt towards quality, while the biggest overweight in…

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May 11, 2020

Durability During Distress – Part 2

Dividends play a vital role in many investors’ approach to the market, although there is more than one way to approach dividends. Some investors are most concerned with dividend yield per se, while others are more sensitive to the growth of dividends over time.  Both approaches, of course, can be readily indicized.  Within the U.S….

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Apr 30, 2020

Durability During Distress

Income-seeking investors have always had to compromise between the level of dividend payments and the safety of dividend payments.   The importance of this tradeoff has recently gone viral, as governmental actions in response to COVID-19 have suppressed global economic activity, causing many companies to suspend or reduce their dividend payments. Launched in 2005, the S&P…

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Apr 13, 2020

Glory or Embarrassment?

Active funds generally lagged their passive benchmarks in 2019, but the market environment in 2020 has already shifted radically. Volatility has skyrocketed as the S&P 500® and other indices have fallen. Ironically, it is precisely in a time such as this, when absolute returns are hard to come by, that relative returns might be most…

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Mar 19, 2020

Showtime for Active Managers?

The rapid spread of coronavirus and oil price concerns have whipsawed U.S. equities since the S&P 500® reached its all-time high on Feb. 19, 2020. On March 16, 2020, the index plummeted by 12%, its worst decline since October 1987; as of the close of trading on March 18, 2020, losses for the S&P 500…

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Feb 10, 2020

Unusual, but Not Unprecedented

Since its inception, the S&P 500® Equal Weight Index has outperformed the S&P 500 by 1.4% annually. Year-over-year performance margins, however, are anything but steady. Exhibit 1 shows that the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index and its cap-weight counterpart have gone through many performance cycles over the past 30 years. Mega caps experienced record performance…

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Dec 2, 2019

Stock Pickers: Hope Springs Eternal

The Wall Street Journal recently quoted several active managers who claim that “conditions for stock picking are improving”. Their rationale is that declining correlations among stocks in the S&P 500 have made it easier for active managers to select stocks based on fundamental analysis. We have heard this argument before, most notably in 2014 when,…

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Sep 24, 2019

Happy Birthday to the Communication Services Sector

The Communication Services sector turns one year old on Sept. 24, 2019. A year ago, the Global Industry Classification Standard® (GICS®) replaced the old Telecommunication Services sector with a new Communication Services sector, which combined telecom with some companies that had formerly been classified in the Information Technology and Consumer Discretionary sectors. As a result,…

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Jul 9, 2019

The Importance of Being Large-Cap

The performance of U.S. equity factors during Q2 was lackluster, with most underperforming the S&P 500, as seen in Exhibit 1.  While Minimum Volatility and Low Volatility were notable exceptions, Value, Quality, High Beta, and Momentum all lagged the benchmark – in large part because of their tilt toward smaller companies.  Since most factor indices…

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Mar 14, 2019

The Height of the Hurdle

Indexing provides many rewards, including a reduction in volatility. Asset owners should demand higher returns to justify the volatility that active management entails. For managers who put their stock selection skills to the test, it is worth understanding the height of the volatility hurdle in managing a portfolio’s risk/return profile. We can illustrate this by…

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