Thanks to optimism surrounding a soft landing and encouraging inflation results, U.S. large-cap equities managed to recover from the trouncing of stocks at the start of the month to finish August with a gain. The S&P 500® was up 2% in August, outpacing the S&P MidCap 400® and the S&P SmallCap 600®.
Consumer Staples and Real Estate led among large-cap sectors. Meanwhile, Energy and Consumer Discretionary were the laggards, a potential signal of risk-off sentiment carrying over from the global tumult earlier in the month.
In another sign of defense, low volatility and low volatility high dividend strategies led among our reported factor indices.
