Stephen Mulholland
July 08, 2016
Stephen Mulholland @ Livian & Co
Equity Portfolio Manager and Partner, Livian & Co.

The Tide Shifts in Investor Risk Appetite

Over the past four years ended June 30, 2016 the S&P 500 generated a cumulative total return of 68%, including dividends. The ride along the way has been anything but a smooth one. In fact, underneath the wealth creation a sea change occurred in terms of the profiles of companies that most rewarded investors.

A basket of widely held hedge fund names, as represented by the Global X Guru Index ETF (GURU), dramatically outperformed a basket of lower volatility, dividend oriented stocks as represented by the SPDR S&P 500 Dividend ETF (SDY) for the first two years only for the trend to completely reverse course. At its trough, GURU was 30% ahead of SDY and as of the end of the second quarter of 2016, GURU was 30% below SDY, a 60% swing. Where will the return difference go next?

Loading PDF

More from Stephen Mulholland
The most important insight of the day
Get the Harvest Daily Digest newsletter.