The WisdomTree Blog
Knowing some of the weaker-performing WisdomTree ETFs could provide investors with a glimpse of some of the most contrarian stories in global asset classes for those bargain hunters chasing assets that have faced the most pressure recently.
It’s interesting that investors will often slice and dice their U.S. equity exposures in almost endless fashion but focus only on the MSCI EAFE Index when looking abroad. If anything, the factor discussion becomes even more interesting when you look outside the United States, because, in these less-efficient markets, disciplined strategies governed by a systematic focus on factors could have greater potential to outperform over time.
The value style has tended to outperform the growth style. This is something that many just assume to be true, and it fits with the behavioral aspect of finance as well. Growth stocks can be exciting, thereby getting bid up in price and leading many to invest well above an appropriate measure of fair value. The result: future underperformance.
One of the key themes dominating the exchange-traded fund industry flows over the last 12 months has been the meteoric rise in assets of minimum-volatility porfolios. For emerging markets, the single largest driver of volatility over the last several years has been the dramatic decline of foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won a decisive victory in Sunday’s Upper House polls. “Abe envy” is now spreading among the global political elite. If Team Abe demonstrates strong economic policy leadership in the coming three to four months, a “Japan premium” should start to develop in Japanese risk asset markets.
Jeremy J Siegel
Senior Investment Strategy Advisor
Jonathan Steinberg
CEO of WisdomTree
Jesper Koll
WisdomTree's Head of Japan
Jeremy Schwartz, CFA
Executive Vice President, Global Head of Research
Christopher Gannatti, CFA
Head of Research, Europe
Christopher Gannatti began at WisdomTree as a Research Analyst in December 2010, working directly with Jeremy Schwartz, CFA®, Director of Research. In January of 2014, he was promoted to Associate Director of Research where he was responsible to lead different groups of analysts and strategists within the broader Research team at WisdomTree. In February of 2018, Christopher was promoted to Head of Research, Europe, where he will be based out of WisdomTree’s London office and will be responsible for the full WisdomTree research effort within the European market, as well as supporting the UCITs platform globally. Christopher came to WisdomTree from Lord Abbett, where he worked for four and a half years as a Regional Consultant. He received his MBA in Quantitative Finance, Accounting, and Economics from NYU’s Stern School of Business in 2010, and he received his bachelor’s degree from Colgate University in Economics in 2006. Christopher is a holder of the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Kevin Flanagan
Senior Fixed Income Strategist
Bradley Krom
Associate Director of Research
Tripp Zimmerman, CFA
Associate Director of Research
Rick Harper
Head of Fixed Income & Currency
Gaurav Sinha
Asset Allocation Strategist
Anita Rausch
Head of Capital Markets
Michael Barrer
Associate Director of Capital Markets
David Abner
Head of Europe
Joseph Tenaglia, CFA
Asset Allocation Strategist
Jeff Weniger, CFA
Asset Allocation Strategist
Matt Wagner
Research Analyst
Alejandro Saltiel, CFA
Quantitative Research Analyst
Alejandro Saltiel joined WisdomTree as a Quantitative Research Analyst in May 2017. He is responsible for quantitative research on WisdomTree’s products and global equity markets. Prior to joining WisdomTree, Alejandro worked at HSBC Asset Management’s Mexico City office as Portfolio Manager for multi-asset mutual funds. He started his career working at a boutique hedge fund that specialized on trading options on sector-levered ETFs. Alejandro received his Master’s in Financial Engineering degree from Columbia University in 2017 and a Bachelor’s in Engineering degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in 2010. He is a holder of the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Brendan Loftus
Research Analyst
Kara Marciscano, CFA
Research Analyst
Jeremy Schwartz recently spoke with Jawad Mian, editor of “ Stray Reflections,” and Richard Clarida, global strategic advisor to PIMCO and economics professor at Columbia, regarding their thoughts on policy action by the Federal Reserve (Fed), the Bank of Japan (BOJ) and the European Central Bank (ECB), as well as global implications for investing. Below I outline the key takeaways.
India’s parliament is currently about to close its winter session. Agenda items for the session included key bills such as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, which could simplify taxes and increase mobility of goods and services across the country; the introduction of a bankruptcy code to strengthen the banking system; and a few other key legislative items.
Many investors allocate their portfolios to traditional asset classes only—namely equity and fixed income, investing on a long-only basis. A dynamic bearish strategy is designed to be net short or market neutral (equal long and short positions) when the market environment is judged to be poor or mixed, and net long when the environment is deemed more attractive. We believe this may be a better long-run strategy than being 100% net short over the long term.