Eight years after the first application for a “Spot Bitcoin ETF” was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ten of them started trading on January 11, 2024. The landmark decision was precipitated by Grayscale’s legal victory against the SEC in 2023. Sponsors of the nine so-called “ETFs” include well-known firms like Ark … Read more
“The Magnificent Seven” was the most popular sobriquet among stock market strategists, portfolio managers and reporters in 2023. Stocks such as Google, Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple dominated performance and volume charts. Almost unnoticed, Broadcom pushed its way to 4th in Market Cap in the Nasdaq and more than doubled in price last year … Read more
Cambria Advisors recently sent out a mailing that was somewhat self-congratulatory noting the 10-year anniversary of the launch of its first ETF. As we will explore shortly, I contend that the congratulations are well-deserved from a number of perspectives. The email missive piqued my interest for a specific reason. The main comparisons made in the … Read more
Throughout my career, I’ve heard professional investors assert that index funds are fine for bull markets but in volatile-to-down markets, active management will outperform. SPIVA (S&P vs. Global) published research available from S&P Global has demonstrated that this was not true for actively managed mutual funds for 2022, and less true for the 2020-2022 period. … Read more
In January, we published “Rotating Regimes – What to Plan For in 2023.” At that time, we recounted that the 2022 US Stock Market was a conflagration that wiped out almost everything in its path with the exception of a few industries and ETFs. At that time, we reported that two Benchmark ETFs we track, … Read more
Looking at this week’s list of stocks rated 5 (Strong Buy) from ValuEngine for year-ahead performance, I note that there are a number of relatively well-known large cap and midcap stocks that meet my minimum criteria as appropriate for conservative institutional-quality portfolios. As we will see, all five are in popular large cap and midcap … Read more
In general, the 2022 US Stock Market was a conflagration that wiped out almost everything in its path with the exception of a few industries and ETFs. The ETF reports on ValuEngine for ETFs that follow market benchmarks provide a side benefit in writing market analyses. They are a window to implicit forecasts for 3-, … Read more
I have spent 40 years helping to develop, research and market quantitative investment products with new twists. The advent of alternative data including the use of web-gathered information introduced new products in that regard. This has led to published papers in refereed journals such as “Using Alternative Research Data in Real World Portfolios” using data … Read more
I feel deluged lately by webinars and events touting investments in gold and precious metals. One theory pushed to support investment in these industry groups is that 1974 is here again. They claim it is inevitable that the market will tank further as the economy plunges into stagflation, a deeper recession accompanied by huge inflation … Read more
This year Aerospace stands out as one of the few industry sectors with a positive return other than energy and utilities. For example, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA), the largest ETF by assets representing the industry, returned 15.2% over the past twelve months in contrast to the -13.6% return posted by … Read more