A weighted indicator of US GDP? | CFA Institute Venture Investor

Index fund traders have completely different choices when selecting a weighting methodology for the funds they personal. There are market capitalization-weighted indices such because the S&P 500 and Russell 2000/3000, stock-price-weighted indices such because the Dow Jones Industrial Common, in addition to equal-weighted indices.

However so far as we all know, there isn’t any US nation-generated index that weights holdings by underlying GDP for every sector.

So how can we create such an index and the way does it examine to the S&P 500 when it comes to efficiency and danger?

To create a weighted index of US GDP, we divided the S&P 500 into 11 main sectors and pulled knowledge for every sector’s corresponding Vanguard exchange-traded fund (ETF) since 2005. Subsequent, we took every sector’s contribution to GDP initially of every quarter and calculate the GDP contribution for every sector throughout the subsequent quarter and multiply that by the sector’s relative GDP weight firstly of the quarter. That gave us the sector’s contribution to the general index return for the quarter.

For instance, if monetary corporations contributed 10.95% to US GDP within the first quarter of 2015 and the Vanguard Financials ETF (VHF) fell 0.81% in that quarter, then by our calculations – 10.95% * -0.81% – the monetary trade contributed by -0.089% to the GDP-weighted index for that specific quarter. Including the contributions of all 11 sectors leads to the overall return of the index within the first quarter of 2015.

Evaluating this GDP-weighted index to the S&P 500 over time highlights some fascinating variations in efficiency. The chart beneath reveals the relative efficiency of the 2 indicators over the time interval 2005 to 2023.

Whole US GDP Weighted Returns vs. SPX

Primarily based on their whole returns, the 2 indices had been tracked by statistical similarity from 2005 to mid-2009. However after 2009, the GDP-weighted index has outperformed the S&P 500 by greater than half a proportion level annually by way of 2023.

Abstract statistics additionally replicate these findings. The US GDP index averaged an annualized return of 10.11% in comparison with 9.61% for the S&P 500 throughout the pattern interval. The weighted index of US GDP additionally had a decrease common beta — 0.98 — over the pattern interval.

General, the outcomes point out that the US GDP-weighted index could supply the potential for extra returns with comparable ranges of danger in comparison with its benchmark.

Our findings actually happen over a restricted time interval of 18 years. So whereas it is too early to make a definitive assertion on what such an index can do relative to a value-weighted index just like the S&P 500, that is actually an space that deserves additional research and evaluation.

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All posts are the opinion of the writer. As such, it shouldn’t be construed as funding recommendation, nor do the opinions expressed essentially replicate the views of the CFA Institute or the writer’s employer.

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