#sp-500

#sp-500

Well-known hedge funds, including Balyasny and ExodusPoint, made money last month, building on their gains as they enter the last quarter of 2025. Dmitry Balyasny's eponymous firm returned 1.3% in September, boosting its 2025 returns to 10%, a person close to the manager said. Michael Gelband's ExodusPoint continued its strong year with a 2% gain in September, according to an individual familiar with the New York-based asset manager. It's now up 12.3% for 2025.

As a barometer of US industrial and corporate economic health, the S&P 500 Index has few equals. Over the past decade, less than 15% of professional large-cap fund managers have been able to surpass the performance of the S&P 500. In fact, no less an investing authority than Warren Buffett cited in the 2013 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter: " The goal of the non-professional should not be to pick winners...instead, seek to own a cross-section of businesses that in aggregate are bound to do well. An S&P 500 index fund will achieve this goal."

Fortune's Shawn Tully points out that the S&P 500's price-to-earnings ratio just hit 30, which often signals impending doom. "A PE of 30 means big cap stocks are really, really expensive by historical standards. It also signals that from these heights, the chance for big returns going forward over any extended period are low, and the risks of a sharp 'reversion to the mean' downdraft is far more likely," he wrote on Tuesday.

On August 28, the S&P 500's price-to-earnings ratio reached a towering reading of nearly 30, the actual number that day was a whisker short at 29.85. Now it's official: Around 3 PM on Monday, September 22, the big cap index sailed beyond that historic barrier, gaining 32 points or 0.48%, a surge that pushed the multiple over the landmark to 30.09.

"rolling recession,"

At present, the fundamental backdrop remains fairly favourable as the U.S. labour market has cooled, helping yields and the U.S. dollar ease, thereby partially relieving discount pressure on equity valuations, especially for interest-rate-sensitive groups. However, part of the rate-cut expectations has already been priced in, so the index's positive reaction tends to be selective and depends heavily on upcoming data as well as the message at the FOMC meeting.

One unexpected side effect of the Magnificent 7's race to build massive AI data centers-and source the power needed to run them-is that they are reducing share buybacks to fund them, according to Goldman Sachs. Companies routinely buy back their own shares to incentivize investors for holding them, to reduce the number of shares available (thus boosting earnings per share), and to boost their own stock prices.

Dubbed the " September Effect," this phenomenon sees the S&P 500 averaging a negative 0.8% return since 1926, the only month with a consistent negative average over nearly a century. Theories abound as to why: from portfolio rebalancing by institutional investors to tax-loss harvesting and post-vacation market jitters.

The S&P 500 etched its name in history yesterday, closing at a new all-time high of 6,501.86, despite investor concern about Nvidia's ( NASDAQ:NVDA ) earnings and doubts about the ongoing AI boom. It's been a rollercoaster year marked by fears of inflation, rising Treasury yields, and geopolitical tensions, yet the index has scaled a "wall of worry," defying skeptics with a 10% gain so far this year.

High-yield ETFs have been quite the buzz this year. While covered call ETFs (or premium income, as some are referred to) are really nothing new for the world of passive investors, I do think that many of the swollen yields have attracted investor attention due to the lower (and falling) yields, particularly in the defensive dividend stocks, which have also had decent years. Indeed, there seems to be somewhat less yield going around, and not enough to satiate some of the more aggressive passive income investors out there.

A far less famous ETF has delivered 20.14% in gains year-to-date (~130% better than the VOO). This is even better than the 10.4% that the QQQ returned. The Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF (NYSEARCA:SPMO ) is the ETF in question. It still invests inside the S&P 500, but the index re-weights and puts extra money into the names with the strongest price momentum, cutting loose the laggards.

The S&P 500 is up 10% year-to-date, powered by the 'Magnificent Seven' tech giants whose foreign-heavy revenues are being boosted by the weaker dollar. Concentration in the top 10 stocks is at its highest since the 1960s, with earnings strength - 83% of companies beating estimates - driving sentiment.

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is an exchange-traded fund that aims to match the performance of the S&P 500 index, consisting of the 500 largest publicly traded companies by market capitalization.

The S&P 500 experienced a pullback of 0.49% amid growing uncertainties surrounding the U.S. economy and global conditions, driven by weak economic data and geopolitical risks.

The S&P 500 has delivered an average annual return of approximately 10.33% since 1957, serving as a benchmark for many investors.

The top 10 stocks contribute 54% of market returns since January 2021, with the Magnificent Seven driving significant risk exposure for investors.