Opinions
Terry Shaunessy
Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Index ETF CAD
EQL-T
PAST TOP PICK
Dec 09, 2020
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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An equal weight holding of RSP. It avoids the FX cost of moving back and forth money with USD. It has outperformed the S&P500 this year.
There have been studies conducted that show equal-weighted indices tend to outperform their market-weighted counterparts over the long term. Since the early 2000s, the equal-weighted S&P 500 index has outperformed the market-weighted S&P 500, and it is only over the last several years that market-weighted has demonstrated outperformance. Part of EQL's long-term outperformance can be attributed to the underlying investment actions of 'buy low, sell high', as it will continue to sell winners and add to underperformers.
As a play on expectations for expanding breadth in the coming years (the remaining 493 companies to see outperformance), we feel this is reasonable, and we expect breadth to improve as we continue into a new bull market.
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As an example, the equal-weighted S&P 500 outperformed the market-weighted S&P 500 from mid-2003 until roughly 2014. From 2014 until today, the market-weighted S&P 500 has outperformed its equal-weighted counterpart, and this typically is temporarily reversed in major market drawdowns (2009, 2020, and somewhat 2022). But, overall since mid-2003, the equal-weighted index has slightly outperformed the market-weighted index on a total return basis.
Given the recent trend of the equal-weight index underperforming the market-weighted index, we would not seek to go against this trend just yet. Although, for an investor with a long-term timeframe and a willingness to see relative underperformance in the near-term, we think the equal-weighted index can outperform over the long term. We like the EQL ETF for a Canadian-denominated equal-weighted S&P 500 ETF.
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