Fueled by falling interest rates and a increased desire for defensive positioning in the equity markets, low volatility stocks have strongly outperformed the broad market in 2019. Over the past year, the two largest low volatility funds - the iShares MSCI USA Minimum Volatility ETF (BATS:USMV) and PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility Portfolio (NYSEARCA:SPLV) - have produced very strong total returns of 18-20% while the S&P 500 has produced a subnormal total return of under 6%.
Source: Bloomberg
As I wrote recently in Low Volatility Stocks and Interest Rates, low