ISCF News and Press, iShares Edge MSCI Intl Size Factor From 12/20/22

Summary Inflation continues to moderate, not only here, but also in Europe. Despite the negative economic reports and the reaction to the Fed rate hike, the US Dollar barely budged for the week. Value yet again outperformed Growth in the last week, this time by a spread of almost 1%...

Summary While it’s been a tough year, the Federal Reserve has done investors an enormous favor in terms of the attractiveness of a wide swath of fixed-income asset classes that today look a lot more attractive than a year ago. Jay Powell and the FOMC did raise the Fed funds rate ...

Summary This sequel to “The Contrarian’s All-Weather Retirement Portfolio” describes my top picks in each asset class and the rationale behind them. Compared to conventional portfolios, it is overweight value, small cap, foreign and commodity equities, shorter...

Summary Global GDP growth is still expected to be positive in 2022 (excluding Russia) but is expected to fall fairly dramatically in 2023. The U.S. Q3 2022 earnings season has just begun, and the outlook is for lower but still positive revenue and earnings growth. Inflation wi...

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 ESG ratings are lacking for small-cap stocks globally. Complying with relevant ESG regulation is nearly impossible for small-cap managers to do using third-party ESG ratings alone. Sustainable global small-cap strategies are very rare, in sharp contrast to the populari...

The acquisition of the condensate production exposure is a huge plus for profitability in the future. The acquisition should lead to above-average profitability gains throughout the business cycle. Lower debt levels also argue for an enterprise valuation increase. Cost reducti...

The global economy and financial markets have suffered a dreadful H1 2022, ravaged by a severe commodity shock, strict COVID-19 lockdowns in the world’s second-largest economy, and one of the most aggressive Fed tightening cycles in recent history. H2 looks equally tough. In it...

According to a recent report released by the OECD, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, if prolonged, could knock 1.1 percentage points off the global GDP for 2021, while increasing global inflation by 2.5 percentage points over an already lofty inflation level. The damage won’t be...

US valuations remain very high despite a recent selloff across the market cap spectrum. Developed foreign markets retreated to reasonable PE10 levels. Emerging market valuations have not budged much even with a more than 20% drop since February 2021. For further details see:...