Blog

By: Mat Lystra, Sr. Research Analyst

Come the end of June, the constituents of all Russell indexes – and the ETFs and passive funds that track them – will be updated during the annual index reconstitution.

By: Jonathan Horton, Head of Integration, Governance and Risk, Information Services Division, LSEG

Despite a volatile start to 2016, the desire on the part of international investors for greater access to China remains high and it continues to raise its profile on the global stage as a market of central importance.

Today is Earth Day. Today is the day the Paris Agreement will open for approval and ratification at the UN in New York City. This agreement is the result of the 2015 annual United Nations Climate Change Conference that took place in Paris in December. 

According to the FTSE Emerging Index, 2016 has included notable ups and notable downs for emerging markets equities. In the first six week of the year, through February 11th, the Index fell 10.2%. From February 11th, when US Fed Chair Janet Yellen signalled a renewed easing of US monetary policy, igniting what many experts have termed a ‘risk-on’ market, the Index has risen 16.7% and now stands at a 4.8% return year-to-date as of April 11th.

By: Catherine Yoshimoto, Sr. Index Product Manager

I finally watched The Big Short last night, a comedic portrayal of the bubbly sentiment surrounding the housing sector leading up to the Global Financial Crisis. This got me thinking about what we can extrapolate from these past events to help guide us through the choppy waters of today. 

By: Tom Goodwin, Sr. Research Director

In a previous post, I shed light on some differences between factor and alternatively weighted indexes, which can at first glance appear to have nearly identical objectives. Now I want to take the discussion a step further, exploring which option would be more suitable for an investor seeking a tool capturing precise factor exposure. This time, a closer look at the numbers reveals a reassuring answer—as the name of the index category suggests, factor indexes can provide more precise exposure to desired factors.

By: Rolf Agather,  Managing Director, North America Research

I was fortunate to join an all star panel of experts at our recent FTSE Russell Small Cap Summit, held with the news media at our New York office. For our third annual Summit, we orchestrated a lively panel discussion moderated by Reuters’ markets correspondent Chuck Mikolajczak.

After a bumpy start in 2016 US stock indexes, particularly those tracking small-caps, have steadliy marched upward since mid-February, as evidenced by a 14.3% rise for the US small-cap Russell 2000^® Index from February 11^th through market close on Friday, April 8^th.

By: Tom Goodwin, Sr. Research Director

FTSE Russell’s 2015 Smart Beta survey found that among respondents who were evaluating more than one smart beta strategy, over half shared the same objective: to understand how the strategies worked in combination.  To help explain this, we’ve recently explored the effects of combining factors in indexes and found that there are smart—and not-so-smart—approaches. We’ve identified sequential tilting as an effective approach, as it can offer multiple factor exposures without diluting the index diversification. 

According to the FTSE Emerging Markets Index Series, the Brazilian equity market rose nearly 30% in March in a period which saw every emerging market index positive amid a rise in emerging markets.

Brazil was the strongest performing emerging market in the Index in March with a 29.9% return, with Greece (21.3%) second and Indonesia (4.3%) the lowest performing emerging market for the month.