August, QTD, And YTD Asset Class Performance

Ted

FYI: The month of August is now behind us and September trading begins on Tuesday following Monday's Labor Day holiday. Below is a look at the performance of various asset classes in August, quarter-to-date and year-to-date using our key ETF matrix. The left hand side of the matrix features mostly US equity related ETFs, while the right side contains country, commodity and fixed income ETFs.

As you can see, August was a big month for US stocks, with most areas gaining 3-5%. It wasn't so great for foreign markets, however, with a lot of red on the board. Commodities got hit in August as well, leaving them down big for the quarter. Fixed income put in yet another month of gains.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2014/8/30/august-qtd-and-ytd-asset-class-performance.html?printerFriendly=true

Bitzer

@Ted Thanks for getting up so early on a Sunday - holiday weekend morning to put our morning news briefing together

Ted

Bitzer: You can thank my cat for this mornings links, he needed to go out. Further glad you enjoy the majority of my links.
Regards,
Ted

rjb112

Ted said:

FYI: The month of August is now behind us and September trading begins on Tuesday following Monday's Labor Day holiday. Below is a look at the performance of various asset classes in August, quarter-to-date and year-to-date using our key ETF matrix. http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2014/8/30/august-qtd-and-ytd-asset-class-performance.html?printerFriendly=true

MFOers, it does not look to me like their data is accurate. And they show the date of their data, 8/30/2014



Below is a comparison of the YTD performance figures from Bespoke versus Morningstar. I trust the M* data

JohnChisum

If you go to different sites you will get different numbers. I am assuming they are quoting SPY.

rjb112

JohnChisum said:

If you go to different sites you will get different numbers. I am assuming they are quoting SPY.

JohnChisum, that's that data I took. I used the performance of the etfs they said they used, namely, SPY, DIA, and QQQ. Those are specific etfs.

I trust the Morningstar data.
I'll see if I can get a "third opinion", but I would trust M* until proven otherwise.

TSP_Transfer

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SPY:US
PERFORMANCE FOR SPY
1-Month +3.95% 1-Year +25.06%
3-Month +4.67% 3-Year +20.49%
Year To Date +9.68% 5-Year +16.75%
Expense Ratio 0.09

rjb112

TSP_Transfer said:

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SPY:US
PERFORMANCE FOR SPY
Year To Date +9.68%

That agrees with the M* data I posted above.
I find M* data to be quite accurate, possibly the gold standard?

Let me check what Bloomberg says for DIA and QQQ

rjb112

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/QQQ:US
YTD for QQQ, 14.48%

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/DIA:SP
Bloomberg is showing YTD 10.14%, which can't be correct! Way off!

JohnChisum

I had checked Bloomberg too and wondered why the discrepancy? A lot of sites use M* data for their quotes. There is usually a disclaimer somewhere. I didn't see that on Bloomie.

rjb112

Yahoo Finance lists YTD data but only as of the end of July.
The firm that developed DIA, State Street Global Advisors, also has the YTD as of July 31.

Looks like Morningstar has the market for up to date performance information. There must be other good, reliable sites for easily obtainable, up to data market data

Bloomberg seemed good until it was difficult getting accurate data on DIA

MFOers, what sites do you like besides M* for up to data, accurate, easily obtainable performance data?

JohnChisum

I don't have a favorite. M* seems the more reliable as far as their quotes go. A lot of sites don't even have YTD stats. They default to one year. Also depending on the site they will choose a different symbol for the SP index whether that makes much difference or not.

rjb112

JohnChisum said:

I don't have a favorite. M* seems the more reliable as far as their quotes go. A lot of sites don't even have YTD stats. They default to one year. Also depending on the site they will choose a different symbol for the SP index whether that makes much difference or not.

@JohnChisum, What I like about M* in this case is that they tell you the actual index total return, as well as any fund symbol you want. SPY is not really the index, it's an S&P 500 index fund, etf version. There's tons of S&P 500 index funds and a few S&P 500 exchange traded funds, like SPY, IVV and VOO. They tend to have a bit of a tracking error, and also expenses that reduce their return. Sometimes the tracking error can make an index fund perform better than the index for a given time frame. The best index funds and most experienced indexers don't have much of a tracking error at all.

M* gives you the total return of the index itself, as well as any index fund you put in.

Below, SPY is up 9.68 YTD, as an S&P 500 exchange traded index fund.

The index itself is up 9.89% YTD

One reason SPY almost always trails the index is the way it is structured. It can't reinvest dividends the way a more typical S&P 500 index fund can, due to its structure as a unit investment trust.




the Bespoke data was way off the mark for all 3 index exchange traded funds that they provided data for, which is hard to understand. Makes me not have confidence in their data. I was just checking it on a whim, and was surprised what I found.

JohnChisum

Bespoke could very well be the Wiki if investor information.

@rjb112, I totally agree with what you have said.