EFA News and Press, iShares MSCI EAFE From 09/27/22

Summary We believe it is unlikely that Fed Chair Jerome Powell will navigate a pivot to a less-hawkish stance before early in 2023. We expect China to grow at a meager 2%-3% pace in 2022, with the potential for these risks to bleed into 2023, as a slowing developed-market consumer...

Summary U.S. equity and bond markets plunged to the lowest levels of the year this past week after the Federal Reserve reiterated that further economic "pain" was necessary to cool inflation. Declining in five of the past six weeks and effectively erasing all of the benchmark's ga...

Summary In a time of uncertainty, we believe that quality is the key to investing in equities. But to consistently find companies that meet high-quality standards requires research, judgment and investing skill. In this paper, we identify the characteristics that can help guid...

Summary The EAFE index has substantially underperformed U.S. equity indexes for years. At some point, theory suggests that EAFE should be cheap enough to be attractive. The market-implied outlook (calculated from options prices) for EFA is increasingly favorable vs. U.S. equit...

Summary Jackson Hole reset expectations to focus more on inflation. The U.S. dollar should stabilize over the medium-term amid hawkishness from other central banks and slowing economic data. At stake is Europe’s ability to refill their storage tanks ahead of winter. ...

Summary We are in a period of economic transition, what worked for the last 40-plus years might become 'undone'. I recently offered the all-weather stock portfolio for retirees. There might be a simpler and more efficient way to create the ready-for-anything retirement portfol...

Summary The Royce Global Value Trust offers wide exposure to both U.S. and non-U.S. small/mid-cap Value stocks; generally with market caps up to $10b. The article includes and compares data for RGT's targeted stocks against other possible equity choices. I find that Value is a plu...

Summary My allocation remains the same. All ETFs are in bearish alignment. All ETFs have held above their June lows. In this month's article, I outline why I will maintain my allocation to the SPDR S&P 500 ETF ( SPY ) in September to 40% with the other 60% of...

Summary The outperformance of either "value" or "growth" tends to reverse around recessions. In an economic expansion, an investment theme is often driven to excess. In the next expansion, the focus tends to shift to what has been underinvested in. While the commodity bull run...

U.S. equity markets failed to extend their weekly winning streak as hawkish commentary from Fed officials sparked renewed pressure on bonds and sent benchmark interest rates back to four-week highs. Following a four-week rally that had erased over half of the benchmark's year-to-date ...