The three largest index providers in the world are S&P DJI, MSCI, and FTSE Russell. For emerging markets, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index is the most popular and widely used benchmark globally. Though MSCI and S&P indices are similar there are significant differences between the indices offered by these companies. It is important to understand these …

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Single country funds are highly risky especially those related to emerging markets. Holding these funds for the long-term defined as five years or more requires strong conviction and patience and there is no guarantee that the bet would be a winner. I recently came across an article that discussed the risks and benefits of investing …

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The Periodic Table of Total Returns for Asset Classes is hard to find on the internet. The regular Periodic Table by Callan and others based on price returns is widely available online. Since total return is more important just than price returns for long-term investors the following chart is especially fascinating for analyzing returns. The …

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Intra-year drawdowns in the S&P 500 are common in the S&P 500 or any other index. The same can be said of any individual stock as well. Though S&P has had intra-year declines of an average of 13.4% since 1948 the annual price returns have been positive in 51 of the past 70 years. Click …

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The returns of the S&P 500 Index often published by the media and others is the price return. However for investors the correct return that matters for the index is the returns including dividends reinvested. This is because S&P 500 firms pay dividends and most long-term investors reinvest them. Currently the dividend yield on the …

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