Eq: Total Market
Um, you might want to duck for cover. Why? Well, because of the explosive growth experienced by the ETF industry, according to zacks.com.
Against the backdrop of a burgeoning stock market, it’s gathering mucho assets. The fact that investors sunk about $200.6 billion in new assets into U.S.-listed ETFs in the first half of the year, didn’t exactly hurt.
Pacing the field was U.S. fixed income ETFs with inflows of $86.7 billion, according to etf.com. Nipping at its heels was $52.9 billion in U.S. equity ETFs and $48.5 billion in international equity ETFs.
Meantime, almost assuredly considerably more on the money than many weather prognosticators, the macro outlook for core fixed income is thumbs up, according to sageadvisory.com. Over approaching quarters, attractive yield carry is tag teaming with peaking rates skews returns to the upside. Fed timing aside, market and dot plots each have rates much lower over the oncoming year or two. What’s more, yield carry looks as good as it has in 15 years.
In an article for MarketWatch, William Watts covers comments from Fundstrat’s Thomas Lee where he discusses why falling volatility is one of the major factors behind the stock market rally in 2023. YTD, the S&P 500 is up 16%, and the index is more than 25% higher from its lows last October.
Equally impressive is that the stock market has recovered more than half of its losses. At its nadir, the market was down by 25% from its all-time high set in January 2022. Currently, it sits just 9% off these levels.
According to Lee, the volatility index is the biggest influence on S&P 500 performance, eclipsing other variables like the US dollar, earnings, rates, monetary, or fiscal policy. However, Lee’s view is not the consensus as many continue to see the market as being in a bear market rally rather than a new bull market.
These skeptics point to historically high valuations for the stock market in addition to analysts’ expectations of a modest decline in earnings per share over the next few quarters. Another headwind is that inflation continues to be stickier than expected resulting in the Fed continuing to hike further.
Finsum: Fundstrat’s Thomas Lee was one of the few to be bullish on stocks entering 2023. He remains bullish and believes the plunging volatility index is a major factor driving returns.
Return flights.No return policy.
Well, whichever way you look at it, as the first half of the year hits the rearview mirror, you might say fixed income has a take of its own. according to schwab.com.
The topsy turvy market aside, all signs are up on year to date returns in virtually every sub asset class of the fixed income market, Modest gains were posted by short term investments with low durations. Meantime, a duo of higher starting coupons and yields, which tracked south, boosted intermediate to long term bonds.
All that said, in 18 months, fixed income markets have been feeling their oats.
That wasn’t the case last year, according to janushenderson.com. After all, that was in light of the central bank’s concerted monetary tightening. With that, yields rose sharply while the prices of bonds retreated. The feeling toward bonds these days? Markedly different.
Global flows into fixed income? Thumb’s up. Year to date, $152 billion entered fixed income funds, reported EPFR Global.
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In an article for MarketWatch, Mark Hulbert discusses the collapse of the volatility index (VIX) over the last couple of months, and why it could be a harbinger of a sustained stock market rally according to historical data.
According to Hulbert when the VIX reaches a fresh, 3-year low, it’s likely to remain low for a couple more months which implies further gains for equities. However, this view is contrary to the consensus expectations on Wall Street which see further erosion in the economic outlook, causing the economy to stumble into a recession. This perspective sees the low Vix as a sign of complacency rather than a ‘continuation’ signal.
Hulbert points to history. Since 1990, the best performing months from a risk and return perspective, have come with low VIX readings. Based on this data, investors should increase equity allocations as the volatility index declines and reduce it as it rises.
Another benefit of this strategy is that it dampens the impact of volatility on the portfolio which increases the odds that investors will stick to their investment plan and not let the market’s twists and turns shake them out of their holdings.
Finsum: Many on Wall Street see the plunge in the volatility index as a contrarian signal, implying complacency. Mark Hulbert disagrees and sees it as the start of a sustained rally.
In an article for Bloomberg, Larry Berman discussed recent improvements in stock market breadth, and what it could mean for volatility. One defining feature of the stock market rally has been the limited participation as the bulk of gains have been driven by the tech sector and a handful of mega cap stocks.
But, this is now changing as economic data continues to come in better than expected, and more parts of the market are joining the rally. According to Berman, this is an indication that the market rally could be in its early innings which means that recent weakness in volatility is likely to linger.
Berman labels this as a ‘bullish divergence’. However, he notes that future contracts of volatility are not yet depressed as the front-month contract. This is an indication that the market does expect volatility to pick back up in the second-half of the year which is also consistent with many analysts who see the economy falling into a recession by then.
He believes that some sort of catalyst is necessary for the bearish scenario to develop which isn’t evident at the moment. This is especially the case as many of the ‘risks’ faced by the market at the start of the year haven’t materialized.
Finsum: There’s an interesting divergence in the market with front-month volatility depressed, while future contracts remain elevated. However, improving market breadth may signal that future month contracts may also move lower in the coming weeks.
Nickel and diming it? Not the global ESG Reporting Software Market. Uh uh. The bottom line tells the story: from burgeoning 0.7 billion last year, it’s expected to jump 1.5 billion by 2027, according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets, reported esgnews.com.
Among other factors, a leapfrog in the adoption of cloud-based solutions and services across verticals, as well as a spike in corporate data volume, are the most significant aspects fueling the acceleration of the ESG Reporting Software Market.
Meantime, not quite hitting the mark, you say?
While sorely needed transparency will emerge from a proposed European Union shake up of the ESSG ratings, it will fail to address the standardization indispensable in eliminating the scores causing confusion among investors and companies, according to some in the market, reported reuters.com.
The market for evaluating the ESG performance of companies? Its exploded. That’s because of the money socked into products marketed as sustainable by investors.
"By opting for transparency over standardisation, the EU's proposals are a promising blueprint, but they must go all the way," said Daniel Klier, CEO of data provider ESG Book.