Is There A Bubble In Private Credit?
By Larry Swedroe|February 7th, 2025|Private Equity, Larry Swedroe, Research Insights, Other Insights, Key Research, Investor Education|
While the media headlines are preaching doom, the fundamentals are telling a very different story—credit spreads have widened, and EBITDA multiples are the lowest they have been in a decade. The bottom line is that for investors able to accept its limited liquidity, private, senior, secured and sponsored by private equity direct lending continues to be a compelling component of a diversified portfolio deliver what has always attracted investors: high current income, resilience through market cycles, and a disciplined approach to risk management. We are far from a bubble.
Is It Time to Ditch International Stocks?
By Jose Ordonez|February 5th, 2025|Predicting Market Returns, Podcasts and Video, Research Insights, Media, Tactical Asset Allocation Research, Macroeconomics Research|
Since 2010, the S&P 500 has beaten the International Developed market in all but three years. This led the U.S. market to outperform International Developed by an astounding 8.14% compounded per year. Wowza! Talk about pain if you’re a global investor.
DIY Trend-Following Allocations: February 2025
By Ryan Kirlin|February 3rd, 2025|Index Updates, Research Insights, Tool Updates, Tactical Asset Allocation Research|
International equity moving from full hedge to no hedge. Commodities moving from full hedge to partial hedge. Real estate moving from partial hedge to no hedge. Intermediate bonds moving from full hedge to partial hedge.
Nine Lessons the Market Taught in 2024
By Larry Swedroe|January 31st, 2025|Larry Swedroe, Research Insights, Other Insights, Key Research, Investor Education|
In 2024 investors were provided with nine lessons. Many of them are repeats from prior years. Unfortunately, too many investors fail to learn them—they keep making the same errors.
The Impact of Impact Investing
By Elisabetta Basilico, PhD, CFA|January 27th, 2025|Elisabetta Basilico, ESG, Research Insights, Other Insights|
Divestment, a commonly used strategy, involves withdrawing support from companies that contribute to these issues, with the intention of creating positive societal change. Despite its appeal, the connection between divestment actions and their actual impact on society remains unclear.
Growth Predictions, Growth Surprises, and Equity Returns
By Larry Swedroe|January 24th, 2025|Asset Growth, Predicting Market Returns, Larry Swedroe, Research Insights, Factor Investing, Other Insights|
What matters is not the expectation of future growth, but the deviation between projected growth and realized growth, which, by definition is a surprise, and, thus, is not forecastable.
Artificial Intelligence and the Risks of Harking (Hypothesizing After-the-Fact)
By Larry Swedroe|January 17th, 2025|Research Insights, Larry Swedroe, AI and Machine Learning, Other Insights|
Because AI systems can produce hundreds of seemingly coherent theoretical explanations for mined empirical results, investors need to establish high hurdles before allocating to anomaly-based strategies.
Training Machine Learning Models For Return Prediction
By Elisabetta Basilico, PhD, CFA|January 13th, 2025|Elisabetta Basilico, Research Insights, AI and Machine Learning, Other Insights|
This paper investigates how modeling choices impact MLM outcomes such as cross-sectional return predictability.
Private Credit: Upper Versus Lower Middle Market Lending
By Larry Swedroe|January 10th, 2025|Private Equity, Research Insights, Larry Swedroe, Other Insights|
Given the similar net returns that UMM and LMM loans have delivered, allocators should consider diversifying across borrower size cohorts. Since LLM loans are somewhat riskier, careful due diligence should be performed in terms of a lender’s credit loss history, fees/expenses, and use of leverage.
Global Factor Performance: January 2025
By Wesley Gray, PhD|January 7th, 2025|Index Updates, Research Insights, Factor Investing, Tool Updates, Tactical Asset Allocation Research|
The following factor performance modules have been updated on our Index [...]