VB News and Press, Vanguard Small-Cap From 02/07/23

Summary Despite our largest holding declining sharply during the month, gains elsewhere in the portfolio helped overall performance. I remain optimistic for the year ahead and our investment strategy. The apparent return of the meme-stock mania has led to somewhat of a short-squeeze...

Summary My December 2019 article, “Mean Reversion + Valuation = Opportunity,” cited cheap, out of favor assets including U.S. value and small caps, international, emerging markets, natural resources, MLPs and gold. All 13 asset classes outperformed the S&P 500 in 2022....

Summary As economies both in the United States and globally weaken with tighter monetary policies, corporate earnings are coming under greater pressure. Without exception, in the 24 months prior to a recession, large caps outperformed small caps. Higher-quality investments did not m...

Summary The ETRACS Monthly Pay 2x Leveraged US Small Cap High Dividend ETN seeks to track twice the monthly performance of the Solactive US Small Cap High Dividend Index. Investors fared better with the Vanguard Small-Cap ETF, a passive SC ETF invested in the CRSP US Small Cap Index. ...

Summary Tightening monetary policy drove rising 10-year Treasury bond yields and pressured equity valuations in 2022. Interest rates will drive the market environment, to some extent, according to our U.S. growth and core equity and U.S. value equity teams. Given the lagged impact, ...

Summary The Vanguard US Small Cap ETF is breaking out to the upside led by the recovery in growth stocks, which have shown signs of life following weakness in 2022. While the near-term technical picture for the VB suggests some further near-term upside, the ETF is unlikely to generate s...

Summary Past episodes of debt ceiling histrionics have resulted in temporary government shutdowns. With both sides seemingly dug in, a repeat of the 2011 episode cannot be ruled out. In 2010, republicans controlled the House and demanded that President Obama negotiate over deficit r...

Summary ClearBridge is a leading global asset manager committed to active management. Research-based stock selection guides our investment approach, with our strategies reflecting the highest-conviction ideas of our portfolio managers. The pro-cyclical tilt of our portfolio helped the S...

Summary Defense equities continue to be a warm blanket for nervous investors. Despite soft 2023 relative performance, you'll find impressive uptrends in many of the industry's individual charts. With a low PEG ratio, shares look cheap for a GARP idea, but buying on a technical pullb...

Summary One of the big stories late last fall was the abrupt about-face turn by the Chinese government on its zero-Covid policy. There is a connection of sorts tying together the newfound fondness for Chinese and European assets. Small-cap domestic stocks do still seem to demonstrat...