There’s a whole exciting thread about *index rebalance* trades which I hope to write about one day but that is entirely separate to the day to say mechanics of index fund management, which is largely very boring and consists of making sure you are correctly
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tracking corporate actions for the index constituents. Fin.
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An important addendum is that index funds also trade when they have inflows and outflows (or an AP trades on behalf of an ETF using the create/redeem mechanism). This is important but orthogonal to the main point, which is that index funds basically never trade on price alone
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macrocephalopod Retweeted baufinanciaphaster 👹
I just realized that
@bauhiniacapital wrote about this way more eloquently and also ~5 hours earlier here —https://twitter.com/bauhiniacapital/status/1359919232062873603 …macrocephalopod added,
baufinanciaphaster 👹 @bauhiniacapitalCarson Block of@muddywatersre writing in the FT lays the blame of stonk gyrations like GameStop (sub $20 on 12 Jan, up 18-fold in 10 trading days) squarely on low rates and passive investing. This is Hogwash, Blatherskite, Buncombe, and Taradiddle. https://www.ft.com/content/dbfc69df-7dbc-4338-a475-1432ffdc4056 …Show this thread1 reply 3 retweets 29 likesShow this thread -
macrocephalopod Retweeted
This thread is a great example of the incredible broken brain gymnastics that people will perform to to misunderstand how index funds work and how they impact prices. Not matter how hard I try to explain it, he keeps repeating the same meaningless point I give up! https://twitter.com/whirlybard/status/1360334892236607489 …
macrocephalopod added,
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Replying to @macrocephalopod
even a basic analysis of etf creation and redemption would show you that fund flows are driven by momentum
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Replying to @goodalexander @macrocephalopod
furthermore the S&P 500 itself, by virtue of being cap weighted drops companies when they fall which is the definition of momentum investing
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Replying to @goodalexander
To your first point, yes absolutely, but that creates *absolute* momentum (al companies go up together) not *relative* momentum (biggest winners rise more)
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Replying to @macrocephalopod @goodalexander
To the second point, yes I agree, I don’t think I have ever argued with this, in fact I explicitly talked about index adds/deletes as an exception when a passive ETF would need to trade (as well as new issuance or buybacks)
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Replying to @macrocephalopod
I guess - I commonly say that the indexing complex is a source of a large amount of incremental momentum investing relative to the status quo it supplanted and feel justified statistically and causally in saying so given the above -- tho I agree mechanically re S&P itself
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I certainly agree that passive investing should be more supportive of momentum *in theory* when it replaces active, although I haven’t seen a ton of evidence for it (one obvious prediction would be that the momentum factor should be working better now but... it’s not?)
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Replying to @macrocephalopod @goodalexander
Even index rebalances, which should add easily observable momentum concentrated in a small number of names, is surprisingly hard to make money from because so many people are trying to do it.
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Replying to @macrocephalopod @goodalexander
There are dozens if not hundreds of teams trying to model which companies will get added/removed from major indexes and get ahead of the rebalance flows, so the price impact from an index add/delete now happens weeks or months ahead of the *announcement* let alone the ex-date
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