QRFT News and Press, QRAFT AI-Enhanced U.S. Large Cap From 05/05/22

The map of the Asset Allocation Committee’s market views is a buzz of activity this quarter. Coming into 2022, we anticipated slower growth compared with the steep recovery levels of 2021 and inflation that was declining but persistent—and problematic due to its origins ...

With oil prices spiking and investors avoiding volatile names, only a few themes have worked: energy and defensive stocks. With economic growth likely to slow and earnings growth harder to come by, companies able to grow earnings should garner renewed interest. To the extent reces...

We believe the conflict in Ukraine may turn out to be less critical for equity markets than the upcoming turn we anticipate in the economic growth cycle. In the near term, we expect the S&P 500 Index (S&P 500) to continue to recover from its March trough. We expect the dis...

The nature of the economic cycle, originally due to the COVID pandemic, has been amplified. The ongoing lockdowns and the military conflict in Europe have prompted us to revise our inflation projections further. The dynamic shifting of corporate winners and losers is a constant an...

Rising interest rates tend to hurt growth stocks, and more specifically tech stocks due to their high price-to-earnings ratios and low dividend payments. The S&P 500 is trading at its cheapest since before the pandemic, with a current P/E ratio of about 25.6. Inflation and sup...

The risk of double-digit inflation is real, as soaring commodity and agricultural input prices could have lagging and lasting effects on food prices. Cash is a traditional alternative to U.S. Treasuries from a diversification standpoint, but soaring inflation limits its typical store ...

With inflation at the highest level in decades and interest rates on the rise, equity investors are questioning their next moves. We could see inflation move toward its new long-run trend starting in the second half of this year. Companies generally have been able to manage higher...

Updating style-box returns as of 3/31/22, using the iShares growth and value ETFs, “value” continues to outperform growth this calendar year. Near the S&P 500 lows of early March and just prior to the start of the nice March rally, S&P 500 growth was down 12%, wh...

Follow the Money is a series of brief, information-rich posts that I will publish periodically but not on a fixed schedule. After rallying for 9 of the last 11 days, the S&P 500 went from down -13% to down just -3.4%. Growth has been hit hard by the slide in tech stocks this y...

Fundamentals always win out in the end, regardless of what style is trending. Volatility opens up opportunity in names that were previously out of reach. Our strategy summarized: clear buy/sell disciplines, a flexible asset allocation process, and a long-term perspective. Fo...