Insights

We offer an intuitive and interactive way to engage with State Street Global Markets'® research. With Insights, you can read market commentary from our team of macro strategists and explore the most interesting trends in our daily indicators of investor behavior, risk, inflation and sentiment based on award-winning research.1
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What's New

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INTRODUCING THE INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR INDICATORS  01 MAY 2023
Insights in Plain Sight
A unique lens into the positioning, risk appetite, and portfolio carbon exposure of the world’s largest institutional investors, representing trillions of dollars in assets.
  • Aggregated and anonymized behavior of thousands of global investors
  • Derived from State Street’s position as a provider of custody and administration services
  • Based on facts, not surveys
  • Unbiased. Unblemished. Unavailable anywhere else
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CHART OF THE WEEK  02 JUN 2023
If a recession is so well anticipated, will it be a shock?

Economists have been worrying about a recession for a year, yield curve-based models about six months, but now our own recession likelihood index  is joining in. The latter is based off a mix of market and economic variables so it captures the broadening concern about a contraction. Although the timing remains uncertain, the one thing we do know for sure is if a recession does indeed arrive, it cannot be a shock!<...

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VIEW CHART
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All Our Latest Research

We offer intuitive and interactive ways to engage with
State Street Global Markets' research.
All images shown above are for illustrative purposes only.
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Our Research

Indicators
Our expansive suite of investment indicators provides investors with an information edge. We provide measures of:
Aggregated and anonymized measures of institutional behavior can identify persistent trends in buying, selling, positioning, and agreement across investment styles, currencies, sectors, countries, and asset classes.
Unique measures of correlation shifts, volatility shocks, and risk concentration can indicate the likelihood of drawdowns in risky assets.
Indicators of sentiment, intensity and disagreement for U.S. stocks, 33 currencies, and 44 countries derived from a universe of more than 100,000 digital media sources worldwide.
High-frequency inflation and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) indicators, derived from millions of products sold by online retailers in 22 countries* can provide leading insights into economic trends.
Investor Behavior
Risk Regimes
Media Sentiment
Consumer Prices
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Market commentary
Our team of macro strategists produce regular commentary on equity, fixed income, and currency markets around the world. We offer a differentiated view on global market trends, risk, and opportunities.
Thought leadership
Access our white papers and peer-reviewed research articles related to macro / multi-asset investor behavior, hedging, risk regimes, liquidity risk, private assets, portfolio construction, and more.
Latest papers
State Street 2023 Summer Sessions

Join us for the 2023 State Street Summer Sessions Webinar Series

 

Time to review the fundamentals of finance and investing! Even ...

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Event Time

By Megan Czasonis, Mark Kritzman, and David Turkington

 

We measure investment returns based on the passage of meaningful events rather than just counting the days. 

 

From a calendar perspective, every day or month is the same as any other day or month. However, from an event perspective, some periods are more meaningful than others. For example, we arguably experienced more in the Covid-induced upheaval of March 2020 than we do in most years. For investors, meaningful events are important, because they may cause asset prices to change. Based on thi...

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Portfolio Construction When Regimes Are Ambiguous

By Mark Kritzman, Cel Kulasekaran, and David Turkington.

 

We introduce a more flexible way to forecast risk and return based on the most relevant historical periods.

 

As economic regimes shift, investors who choose to adapt must build portfolios that match their evolving view of the future. Forecasts of asset risk and return should account for regime-specific ...

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Quantifying Narratives and their Impact on Financial Markets

By Rajeev Bhargava, Xiaoxia Lou, Gideon Ozik, Ronnie Sadka and Travis Whitmore 

 

We introduce a unique media-based measure of narratives, called thematic indicators, and explore how they can be used to improve asset allocation and achieve desired thematic exposures.

 

This paper introduces a media-coverage-based approach to quantify narratives and develops methodologies to explain the extent to...

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Stock Vulnerability and Resilience

By Megan Czasonis, Huili Song, and David Turkington

 

We use a statistical method that combines a stock’s attributes in a nonlinear and conditional way in order to predict its relative vulnerability or resilience to market drawdowns.

 

By definition, a stock market crash corresponds to a severe, market-wide drawdown. However, below the surface, there is often considerable dispersion in th...

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Climate Solutions Investments

By Alexander Cheema-Fox, George Serafeim, and Hui (Stacie) Wang

 

Beyond carbon avoidance. A look at investing in firms with “pure-play” climate solutions.

 

An increasing number of companies are providing products and services that help reduce carbon emissions in the economy. We develop a methodology to identify “pure-play” climate solutions companies and construct portf...

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Relevance-Based Prediction

By Megan Czasonis, Mark Kritzman, and David Turkington

 

Statistics and intuition converge with the concept of “relevance”.

 

We introduce a prediction system based on assessing the relevance of prior outcomes for future predictions, and describe the advantage it brings to both simple and complex quant models.

 

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Measuring Market Froth

We define equity markets and sectors to be “frothy” when the probability of a future drawdown in prices is high. Using simple panel regressions, we analyze data across 80 countries and 400 country-sectors to identify and evaluate which factors--including issuance, volatility, the price path, and flow-based factors-- are most predictive of future sector-level drawdowns. We translate our predictive model into indicators for sector- and market-level froth.

Quantifying Narratives and their Impact on Financial Markets

By Rajeev Bhargava, Xiaoxia Lou, Gideon Ozik, Ronnie Sadka and Travis Whitmore 

 

We introduce a unique media-based measure of narratives, called thematic indicators, and explore how they can be used to improve asset allocation and achieve desired thematic exposures.

 

This paper introduces a media-coverage-based approach to quantify narratives and develops methodologies to explain the extent to...

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State Street 2022 Summer Sessions

Time to review the fundamentals of finance and investing! Even the most sophisticated investors can benefit from an occasional tune up. Watch replays from the 2022 State Street Summer Sessions webinar series, where our team of academic and industry experts went back to basics and covered the core principles of modern investing. Connecting theory to practice, our presenters put trends like in...

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Our Goal

Our goal is to bridge the worlds of financial theory and practice with innovative research for asset managers and owners. We focus on two fundamental drivers of performance to help State Street's clients exceed their performance goals and manage risk.

Information Advantage

Our extensive indicator suites provide investors with powerful and practical market intelligence.

Research Advantage

We partner with renowned academics to develop impactful new ideas for portfolio construction, risk management, and investment strategies.
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Our Goal

Our goal is to bridge the worlds of financial theory and practice with innovative research for asset managers and owners. We focus on two fundamental drivers of performance to help State Street's clients exceed their performance goals and manage risk.

Information Advantage

Our extensive indicator suites provide investors with powerful and practical market intelligence.

Research Advantage

We partner with renowned academics to develop impactful new ideas for portfolio construction, risk management, and investment strategies.
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Learn more about Insights
Learn more about
Insights
Please contact us to learn more, subscribe or schedule a demo.
1.Peter L. Bernstein Award for Best Article in an Institutional Investor Journal in 2013; Doriot Award for Best Private Equity Research Paper in 2022; Bernstein-Fabozzi/Jacobs-Levy Award for Outstanding Article in the Journal of Portfolio Management in 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013 (2), 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021; Roger F. Murray First Prize for Research Presented at the Q Group Conference in 2012 and 2021; Graham & Dodd Scroll Award for article in the Financial Analysts Journal in 2002 and 2010.