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Most active managers fail to beat their indices. Passive management is systematic and delivers expectations over the long term. Stock-picking is lucrative, but time consuming. SPLV facts make it attractive. When it comes to investing in equities in North America, the S&P 500 is one if not the most popular index used as a guideline and benchmark. There are various exchange-traded funds that replicate the composition and the return of the S&P 500. Best known ETFs in this space are: State Street SPDR, SPY iShares, IVV Vanguard, VOO This index has delivered an annualized return of approximately 7.48% (depending on month calculated) in the past ten years with an annualized standard deviation of approximately 15.05%. This performance is certainly not rock star, but is respectable and relatively consistent. On a longer time period (since 1928), the S&P 500 has averaged around 10% annualized. So what is the S&P 500? The S&P 500 is an index composed of 500 companies in the U.S., considered leaders in their respective industries. Companies in this index are mostly of large capitalization and together they represent around 80% of the economy. Therefore, this index is considered a representation of the U.S. market. Some companies in this index are Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ), and General Electric (NYSE: GE ) . Knowing this index represents the U.S. market and that it has performed relatively well, we ask ourselves if we can make a better index. Like all changes, there may be something to sacrifice. Second, what do we seek in an investment? It turns out two and only two things are priority. First, we want our investment to appreciate the most be in terms of capital appreciation, income (dividend or interest), or both. Second, we want our investment to be as less risky as possible. We measure risk as continuous change in value (standard deviation) and loss of permanent capital. How do we minimize risk? Our first action is to diversity; this way we eliminate diversifiable risk known as unsystematic risk (company going bankrupt or not meeting expectations). Second, we invest in strategy that has delivered expected returns over an expected holding time period. Meet the S&P 500 Low Volatility Index. This index is a stripped version of the S&P 500, by selecting 100 constituents with the lowest volatility over the trailing 12 months from the S&P 500 and rebalancing the index quarterly. What is so great about this index? The risk-adjusted returns are impressive. Here is a graph of the index performance: (click to enlarge) As can be seen, the returns in the graph demonstrate adequate upside and safer downside risk in comparison to the S&P 500. How about the performance and the standard deviation of the index? (click to enlarge) Source: SP Indices The return table shows that on all periods except 3 years, the Low Volatility Index performs better than the S&P 500. Also, the Low Volatility Index demonstrates that it has been less risky than the S&P 500 in the trailing 3, 5, and 10 year periods. Before you get excited, I have talked about this index and the returns and risk it has provided over the previous 10 years but the index is not an instrument to invest in. So where can you invest in a fund that replicates this index? PowerShares S&P 500 Low Volatility Portfolio (NYSEARCA: SPLV ). This ETF has over $5 billion in assets under management and charges a total expense ratio of 0.25%, making liquidity and fees manageable. In terms of performance, the ETF has delivered an annualized return of 13.33% since inception versus 12.59% for the S&P 500 Index. The funds top ten holdings currently are Plum Creek Timber (NYSE: PCL ), PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP ), Republic Services ‘A’ (NYSE: RSG ), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG ), Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB ), Stericycle (NASDAQ: SRCL ), McCormick (NYSE: MKC ), Paychex (NASDAQ: PAYX ), Ace (NYSE: ACE ), and XL Group (NYSE: XL ). Source: PowerShares Currently, this ETF is the only investment option in this index (per my research). There are other low-volatility ETF’s out there, but their methodology differs. It is clear SPLV is an attractive position to be considered for any portfolio. Scalper1 News
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