Author: shyam

Weekly Recap: When Evidence Fails

world.2015-10-09.2015-10-16

Equities

Major
DAX(DEU) +0.08%
CAC(FRA) +0.03%
UKX(GBR) -0.59%
NKY(JPN) -0.80%
SPX(USA) +1.14%
MINTs
JCI(IDN) -1.47%
INMEX(MEX) +0.07%
NGSEINDX(NGA) -1.10%
XU030(TUR) -1.05%
BRICS
IBOV(BRA) -3.27%
SHCOMP(CHN) +6.54%
NIFTY(IND) +0.59%
INDEXCF(RUS) -0.66%
TOP40(ZAF) -0.73%

Commodities

Energy
Brent Crude Oil -4.00%
Ethanol -0.20%
Natural Gas -3.08%
RBOB Gasoline -6.00%
WTI Crude Oil -4.35%
Heating Oil -5.54%
Metals
Copper -0.41%
Palladium -1.68%
Gold 100oz +1.96%
Platinum +3.61%
Silver 5000oz +2.53%

Currencies

USDEUR:+0.18% USDJPY:-0.69%

MINTs
USDIDR(IDN) +0.95%
USDMXN(MEX) -0.17%
USDNGN(NGA) -0.05%
USDTRY(TUR) -0.71%
BRICS
USDBRL(BRA) +5.00%
USDCNY(CHN) +0.14%
USDINR(IND) +0.12%
USDRUB(RUS) -0.53%
USDZAR(ZAF) -1.93%
Agricultural
Cotton +3.23%
Feeder Cattle +2.54%
Lean Hogs -11.45%
Wheat -2.75%
Orange Juice +18.33%
Soybeans +1.64%
Cocoa +1.34%
Coffee (Arabica) -4.16%
Coffee (Robusta) -0.49%
Corn -1.24%
Soybean Meal +1.76%
Sugar #11 +0.70%
Cattle +4.10%
Lumber +5.94%
White Sugar +0.05%

Credit Indices

Index Change
Markit CDX NA HY -0.72%
Markit CDX NA IG +3.83%
Markit iTraxx Asia ex-Japan IG -4.14%
Markit iTraxx Australia -2.90%
Markit iTraxx Europe -1.84%
Markit iTraxx Europe Crossover +4.46%
Markit iTraxx Japan -0.38%
Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe +0.27%
Markit LCDX (Loan CDS) +0.00%
Markit MCDX (Municipal CDS) +0.56%
Risk ON like Donkey Kong this week. All that money that fled EMs fearing a Fed rate hike is finding its way back…

Global ETFs (USD)

global.etf.performance.2015-10-09.2015-10-16

Nifty Heatmap

CNX NIFTY.2015-10-09.2015-10-16

Index Returns

For a deeper dive into indices, check out our weekly Index Update.
index.performance.2015-10-09.2015-10-16

Market Cap Decile Performance

Decile Mkt. Cap. Adv/Decl
1 (micro) +1.34% 76/59
2 +3.26% 81/53
3 +3.42% 72/62
4 +3.84% 73/62
5 +2.85% 75/59
6 +2.42% 76/58
7 +2.29% 72/63
8 +2.89% 73/61
9 +0.95% 73/61
10 (mega) +0.47% 75/60
Midcaps outperformed large caps…

Top Winners and Losers

RCOM +8.23%
TATAMOTORS +8.35%
NMDC +9.10%
INFY -6.21%
TCS -5.93%
CONCOR -5.79%
IT guys got hit buy a bus…

ETF Performance

INFRABEES +3.03%
BANKBEES +1.98%
PSUBNKBEES +1.66%
GOLDBEES +1.50%
NIFTYBEES +0.67%
JUNIORBEES +0.55%
CPSEETF +0.32%
Green zoned…

Yield Curve

yieldCurve.2015-10-09.2015-10-16

Bond Indices

Sub Index Change in YTM Total Return(%)
0 5 -0.01 +0.16%
5 10 +0.02 +0.05%
10 15 +0.03 -0.04%
15 20 +0.00 +0.13%
20 30 -0.03 +0.41%
The curve remained unchanged…

Investment Theme Performance

High beta took off like a rocket…

Equity Mutual Funds

Bond Mutual Funds

Thought for the weekend

The investing cycle of good ideas goes something like this:

Early adopters find an anomaly and exploit it for huge gains. More and more smart money begins to figure out this apparent loophole and competition means lower profits to go around. Next come the academics with their research papers that get published in the trade journals and such. Finally, Wall Street picks up on the trend and does their part to create more products than are needed to help everyone else finally jump in on the fad, usually just as the cycle is about to turn.

Source: When Evidence Fails

Mutual Fund Alpha Charts

Charting Alpha

Most mutual fund investors chase recent performance. However, experience shows that alpha, or out-performance, is rarely sustained in the fund universe. To visualize how alpha fluctuates across different time-periods, we extended the relative strength spread notion of stocks to mutual funds. By normalizing performance across multiple funds vs. a single benchmark, the CNX 500 index, we can get a sense for how stable the alpha is.

Exhibits

Have a look at the RS-Spread chart of the HDFC Growth Fund:
hdfc.growth.mf.relstrength

Notice how 1-year alpha was below zero between Oct’2012 and May’2014 and is now back below zero again. This should indicate that whatever strategy the fund is employing is not that great in generating sustainable alpha. Now compare that to the Birla Sun Life Frontline Equity Fund:
birla.frontline.mf.relstrength

Notice how the fund has managed to outperform over the last 5-years. Here’s the MNC fund’s RS-Spread chart:

Birla.MNC.mf.relstrength

The FundCompare Tool

We update these charts daily for more than 100 funds. You can access them through our FundCompare tool. If you have any questions, give us a call or Whatsapp us!

Relative Strength Spread Charts

What is Relative Strength Spread?

Relative Strength Spread of a stock is the relative cumulative performance of the stock vs. the CNX 500 index over the same period.

We had discussed how the Relative Strength Spread Index is a coincident indicator of momentum earlier. With a new update, we are publishing charts of relative strengths of individual stocks over multiple lookback periods. This can be found under the ‘Quant’ tab of the equity pages.

How to interpret Relative Strength Spread?

Relative Strength Spread is a measure of historical out-performance. By observing the RS-Spread over different lookback periods, investors can get a sense of future direction of momentum. For example, if you look at the RS-Spread of TATAMOTORS, you can observe how the stock lagged the broad market for the better part of the year before suddenly turning around in the last few days.

TATAMOTORS.relstrength

Now contrast that to BHARATFORG:

BHARATFORG.relstrength

Unlike a price or return chart that looks at an individual stock, the RS-Spread chart incorporates information from a broad set of stocks and compares it to the market average. It has more information content than the ‘Relative Momentum’ chart as well.

A quick note on bonds

We compared the total returns from the short-end of the curve to Nifty. Here’s what we found:

  1. IRR over the last 10 years for bonds was 6.53%.
  2. Biggest drawdown was -5.04%.
  3. Only two years of negative correlation with NIFTY.

Annual returns:
nifty.vs.0-5.bonds

Equity curve:
0-5's vs. NIFTY returns

Drawdowns:
0-5s.NIFTY.drawdowns

The right place for bonds in a portfolio is for regular income. From a returns perspective, you are better off investing in equities. Bonds are no less volatile when compared to the returns they give, and are mostly correlated with equity volatility.