Market Moment - September 2026
The things we tend to think about most often when it comes to making investment decisions are geographic distribution, company size and industry. In this Market Moment update, our Director of Investment Management Anthony Valeri, CFA®, takes a closer look at factor investing and how growth, dividend yield, quality, momentum and volatility can impact investment performance.
Key takeaways:
- Momentum has been the dominant factor driving returns over the last two years, up over 80% since the beginning of 2024 and 33% over the first half of 2026 alone.
- Momentum’s extreme outperformance nearly doubled the next factor, which was growth, up 17% since 2024.
- Recently, we’ve seen low-quality stocks outperforming high quality with an extreme gap that lasted through the middle of June. However, the long-term trend is high quality ultimately wins out over low.
- So far in the second half of the year, we have seen a shift with momentum falling off dramatically while low volatility, quality and dividend have bounced back.
- There has been notable rotation in the market, which can act as a healthy reminder to remain diversified.
Tune in to this month’s Market Moment to learn more about these factor investing styles and how understanding factor exposure can help you maintain your portfolio diversification.