Category: Market News

All-time highs for major stock benchmarks, tight credit spreads and low volatility signal serenity ahead. However, in 2020 the margin for error — and opportunity — will likely be as small as it’s been in a long time. In the upcoming webcast, Low-Cost ETFs: Strategies for Efficient Broad Market Exposure, Vito Sciaraffia, Chief Investment Officer, Innealta Capital; Mike Dickson, Head of Portfolio Management, Horizon Investments; and Robert Forsyth III, Head of SPDR Americas Client Enablement Group, State Street Global Advisors, will look at market trends, what to look out for…

In case you missed it, 2019 was a good year to be an equity investor. Examining market-cap-weighted indices, the U.S. stock market was up ~ 30%, Developed International Markets were up ~ 22%, and Emerging Markets were up ~ 18%. But how did factors do in 2019? Below I update my post from last year, examining the performance of simple factor portfolios. This year, I make some minor tweaks to highlight the performance while varying the level of concentration towards each factor. Let’s dig into the results. Factor Investing Data and Results Similar to…

It’s been a tough start to the month for silver (SLV) with the metal giving up all of January’s advances and sitting near last month’s lows. One would think that this adverse price action might have spooked a few of the bulls, but speculative positioning in the metal would suggest otherwise. Rather than seeing some of the bulls pare back their exposure and lick their wounds, we’ve seen continued buying of silver contracts, with exposure to silver remaining near multi-year highs. Unfortunately, for the bulls, this continues to be a…

Fossil fuel producers, coal miners, in particular, are contending with a rough environment and outlook, which is weighing on the VanEck Vectors Coal ETF (KOL B), but some producers of metallurgical coal are trying to find ways to rebound. KOL tracks the MVIS Global Coal Index. That index “is intended to track the overall performance of companies in the global coal industry which includes coal operation (production, mining, and cokeries), transportation of coal, production of coal mining equipment as well as from storage and trade,” according to VanEck. In recent…