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Michael Batnik
Today's Animal Spirits Talk. Your book is brought to you by State Street Investment management. Go to statestreet.cominvestment management to learn more about their ETF for the People's Index, the Dow ticker DIA@statestreet.com investment-management for more information. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management.
Ben Carlson
This podcast is for informational purposes only.
Michael Batnik
And should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain.
Ben Carlson
Positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
Michael Batnik
Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, the Dow has been around since 1896. 1897, is that correct?
Ben Carlson
I think it's 1896.
Michael Batnik
So one of the weird things about the Dow is that it's a price weighted index. And we talked to Matt Bartolini from State street today all about this. And I never thought to realize, like, why, why did they do it like this? And one of the reasons that they did it like this, Matt mentioned and I kind of chat GPT it to make sure it made sense, is they didn't have the computing power to make these crazy indexes back in the day. And the staying power of this, that it's, I don't know, fast approaching 130. It's 130 years or so of being around. They did a price index back then because it was the easiest way they could calculate it. I never thought about that. Did you?
Ben Carlson
I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I did. May I? Who could?
Michael Batnik
So the Dow is not just what you hear on the news, actually, it's actually investable. So State street has a Dow ETF DIA, and it has what, nearly $40 billion in assets in it that people.
Ben Carlson
Refer to as the diamonds.
Michael Batnik
Okay.
Ben Carlson
Do they? The diamond?
Michael Batnik
I don't know. Did you just make that up?
Ben Carlson
Nope. I think they do. All right, so, Ben, there was 12 stocks in the original Dow in 1896. Can you name any of them?
Michael Batnik
Are any of them still alive?
Ben Carlson
You can name one of them.
Michael Batnik
Ge.
Ben Carlson
Yes.
Michael Batnik
Boom.
Ben Carlson
Credit to you. Great job. American Cotton Oil Company. American Sugar Refining Company. American Tobacco Company. Chicago Gas Company. Distilling and Cattle Feeding Company. General Electric LAC Lead Gas Company. National Lead Company. North American Company, Tennessee Coal Iron and Railroad Company. U.S. leather Company and U.S. rubber Company.
Michael Batnik
See, that's why things were so boring back then, wasn't all those boring things.
Ben Carlson
Yeah, I mean, I would have paid more than four times earnings for those things. You kidding me?
Michael Batnik
What do they have, like a 12% dividend yield? All right, so we talked to Matt Bartolini from State street all about the Dow and got into a bunch of other stuff, what's going on in the markets and what they're seeing. So here's our conversation with Matt.
Ben Carlson
Matt, welcome back to Animal Skirts.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, thanks for having me back.
Ben Carlson
All right, today we are talking about the People's Index, the oldest index, 1896.
Matt Bartolini
I think, give or take. Yeah, that's when it was sort of first reported.
Ben Carlson
We're talking about the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If you turn on tv, Kramer, whatever newspaper, it is always the first thing. What did the Dow do today? It's kind of funny, like I feel like the s and P500 has taken the crown in many respects. But for Main street, when they think about the stock market, they think about they or the question like how they say, how did the Dow do? True.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah. A hundred percent true. My parents are like, oh, I heard the dow was down 400 points today. What's happening?
Ben Carlson
Yeah, nobody, nobody civilians do not quote the S and P. It's always Dow. So we think of it, I think as, as an index. And it is, but it is, it is an unusual index. It still gives you broad diversification. It is the US Stock market, but it is different than the S and P. So what is the Dow, how is it weighted and how is it different than the market cap weighted index?
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, so it's 30 stocks selected by a committee grouped by S and P and the Wall Street Journal. And that's sort of how it's been throughout time. It has 30 stocks. It covers a broad range of sectors and industries. The selection criteria are for, you know, basically companies that have a strong reputation, sustained growth really resonate with investors as well, but also make the plurality of their revenue within the US So, so think of it as like US large cap, blue chip, well known firms that are spread across different sectors of the US Economy. And the weighting mechanism is price weighted. So a stock with the highest price will have the highest weighting. And there's controls in that, in sort of the index design where the highest price Stock cannot be 10 times greater than the lowest price.
Michael Batnik
Okay, so there are some sort of caps on that. That makes sense. And what is the, how different does the sector weightings look than the S and P? I assume the biggest one would be. It's not nearly as Tech heavy, but with 30 names, it's obviously still a concentrated index.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, it, it is. It is different than the S and P because the S and P is going to be market cap weighted. And when you have high amount of concentration, you can start to have a high amount of concentration in sectors. And so if we look at it in the Dow Jones, the highest weighted sector is the financials with 26%. And if we look at the S&P 500 financials, they make up around 13% within the S&P, 533% is in tech. So it is a different level of sector classifications and sector allocations with something like the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Ben Carlson
It's kind of remarkable how the composition of the index really makes no sense. Like why would you weight stocks by their price? It's an arbitrary measure of value. Right. For example, McDonald's stock is $300. Okay. And Walmart stock is $98. And that's it. That's not value. That's literally price. And yet if you zoom out. So I'm looking at the max change since inception of, of the earliest inception of both of these ETFs, not the index of the ETFs goes back to 1998. There's very little difference now over shorter periods of time, particularly in the last like three to five years, there's a decent amount of difference between tech stocks. But it's just wild that like this index of 30 stocks that is weighted by again, the price tends to track the market cap pretty closely.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, I mean, I would agree, like price weighting is probably something that you would create in the 1800s. Right. But it's still not.
Michael Batnik
Probably just easier. Back then they didn't have computers and stuff to calculate all this stuff. It was probably the simplest method they could come up with. Right.
Ben Carlson
It works. It does work.
Michael Batnik
Yeah.
Matt Bartolini
It was, it was. You put it in a table and I think it was the Atlantic observer. And then you average out the price and there you go, you get your index for the day over day over day. But there is some dynamicism to it because there is a divisor to control for those outliers where a stock, perhaps they have a stock split or there's never corporate action event or a stock gets included at a different price than, you know, what is the top one now or the bottom one. So there is some dynamicism to it too because of that divisor to make it a little bit more sophisticated. But I also say like, you know, equal weighting. I know I talked about that in the last podcast with you guys like equal weighting sort of more generally accepted, but that's not really that novel either. It's just looking at the number of stocks, you know, fairly equal, weighting them across the board. I would say the reason why the the returns are similar, you're able to get a good barometer the broad based US equity market and economy and is not so much on the weighting mechanism but on the selection criteria. Right. So if we go back to some of the core principles of what's being included, it is, you know, a company that has, you know, sustained growth, an excellent reputation, the share price is well controlled and that the fact that the committee is looking for broad based sector representation across the US economy, you know, if we were to have a selection criteria that looked at unprofitable firms, firms that made no money and you price weighted those, or if you market cap weighted those, the returns on those would be exactly the same. Because ultimately comes down to what are the companies within the benchmark. The weighting will have an impact again like you said Michael, on those short time periods where all of a sudden tech rips but over a long time horizon, being diversified across all segments of the broader economy can be helpful in maintaining that market exposure.
Michael Batnik
The long term nature of these makes it so, yeah that the Dow and the S and P aren't nearly as off of each other as one would think. But in the short run it can diverge quite a bit. Like in 2023 and 2024 the Dow lagged, but in 2022 when the market was down, it outperformed by a pretty wide margin. Is that just. I'm trying to think of like what factor style box they would fit in. Is that just because these are more high quality kind of value dividend type of names, is that the best way to describe it from a factor perspective?
Matt Bartolini
Yeah. So if we're going to look at it through a factor lens in their factor betas to those to value quality and momentum. Historically the Dow Jones Industrial Average is going to be of higher value. So you know, or in this case low value, but have more value attributes. So it's a value oriented approach. It'll be more slightly higher quality than the S&P 500, which is sort of hard to do these days just given how much cash those mag7 stocks kick off and lower volatility. And I think it just comes back to, and this is not a technical term, but the blue chippiness of these type of companies where they have a very durable business A wide moat. They've been around for a significant period of time, have been able to weather different economic storms. And so in a period like 2022, these companies and their blue chip nature can perhaps ride out some of the adverse consequences result from the Federal Reserve tightening the monetary policy so significantly.
Ben Carlson
There are 30 stocks in this index and these are the top 10. Goldman, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Home Depot, Visa, Sherwin Williams, American Express, Amgen, McDonald's and JP Morgan. When people think about constructing a portfolio and they ask the question, am I diversified? How many stocks do I need to be to be diversified? Well, as we keep mentioning, 30 stocks gets you, I don't know, pretty much all the way there, right? 30 stocks versus 500, not a whole lot of a difference. How talk to us about, because you mentioned that these are blue chip names, you think stability, you think durability. Coca Cola has been in the index, I'm guessing for a long time now. I would imagine that turnover in the Dow is significantly different than the S and P. Is there more, is there fewer turnover, fewer names coming in and out than the other index?
Matt Bartolini
Well, that's the interesting thing is that there actually is no set rebalancing schedule. So with the s and P500 rebalances, reconstitutes basically the third Friday of the last month of the quarter. So like September 18th and next one we'll have. Yeah, September 18th would be the Q3 one. With the Dow Jones Index, there is no set rebalancing schedule. The committee will make decisions on whether a stock needs to be removed either because of price concerns, perhaps the price goes well above in excess of what they would consider to be stable for inclusion, or there's a corporate action or a company no longer has those attributes of an excellent reputation, sustained growth and something that resonates with the investor. So the turnover profile will be very different. And so to that extent, this actually is a very much a buy and hold type of index where it's not constantly churning out the portfolio and rebalancing. I think that also speaks to some of the price weighting mechanism where it's, you know, it's a little bit of like set it and forget it.
Michael Batnik
Do these companies, are these companies hesitant to do stock splits? Like do they care if they're high weighting in the Dow? If Goldman decided to do a 2 for 1 stock split for whatever reason, I mean, it doesn't really matter anymore because you can buy fractional shares, but companies still do stock splits, obviously. Is it rare for a Dow stock to do that.
Matt Bartolini
I cannot remember which company it was and I don't want to use the wrong name, but there are companies that you look at and they do a stock split and ultimately stock splits don't make too much sense from a financial perspective. And there it is to get into the Dow. There's a lot of fanfare being included. The Dow Jones. Even if you look at some of the top brands.
Ben Carlson
Didn't Amazon do that?
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, so I think it was Amazon.
Michael Batnik
I didn't want to say it was Amazon. Yeah, they had like a thousand dollar price. Yeah, that's right.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah. And so that all of a sudden becomes really exclusive club 30, you know, 30 stocks. It's not a lot that you can get into and you can bandy about that to your end investors that you're one of the, you know, large companies, blue chips in the, in the Dow. And if you look at some of the global brands, you know, Forbes put puts out that list. I think the Dow Jones index has 10 out of the top 50. I mean you could walk down I think some of those names that you rattled off earlier, Michael. I think I even used them in my day today so far and it's only not even lunchtime.
Ben Carlson
You know what's probably coming out, which is sort of neither here nor there. But I'm guessing UnitedHealth doesn't fit the criteria of a blue chip name, which is sort of whatever besides the point. But anyway, so this is not just an index that people talk about. This is also very much an index that people invest in. So you all have an ETF that tracks us. I would say the ETF that tracks us. The ticker is DIA and it's got $38 billion in here. And I mean that's a huge number. I know with ETFs, it's weird, but like, do you have any sense of who's allocating here? I'm sure the answer is everyone. Anyone.
Michael Batnik
This has got to be a baby boomer etf. Correct. Is that stereotyping?
Matt Bartolini
I wouldn't probably put it into a demographic lens. I would probably say it is very much a sizable retail community using it. Now that retail community probably skews to the older generation. So I think to that respects you're accurate. But this ETF is actually a microcosm of all the different user bases of ETFs because DIA has a decent amount of options liquidity and also has a deep. And there's a relevant futures contract that offsets it. So you actually see this traded a lot in some of the structured product vehicles as well as in some of the more delta 1 systems. So you have your wealth advisory, you have retail, you have institutions. So there's actually a pretty decent ecosystem of user base here. But I think when we look at the 13Fs, there's a lot of unreported shares which when we look at that, that says to me it is a decent amount of retail participation because retail investors do not need to divulge or disclose their ownership of ETFs.
Ben Carlson
Well, think about it this way. If you want exposure to the US stock market, but you don't want to have 35% of your portfolio or whatever the number is in the top seven names, there's not a bad way to get exposure.
Michael Batnik
Yeah.
Matt Bartolini
And I think every day you're also getting a readout of the scorecard from the local news. They always report out on what the Dow is doing. And it has this sort of cultural resonance of like, yep, I own the Dow Jones Index. I have a piece of my portfolio in there. These are 30 blue chip stocks, brand names that everyone knows. Coca Cola to JP Morgan to Goldman Sachs to Apple, Amazon. And that's the other thing is, know a lot of people maybe look at this and like, oh, that's my grandfather's index. That's an older index. It's not really has a hard time keeping up with the times, you know, but if you look at it has four out of the seven mag. Seven. You know, it has Apple, it has Amazon, it has Apple and Microsoft.
Ben Carlson
You mentioned the blue chippiness, which I think I mentioned, that you mentioned already. So apologies, but the American exceptionalism has been a theme in 2025. Is it the end or not? What does the revenue exposure look like for the Dow versus the S and P?
Matt Bartolini
Yeah. And when we break it out by the revenue derived by country, right now it skews about 65 to 66% derived in the US for Dow Jones. So about two thirds of the revenue of Dow Jones companies is generated within the confines of the US if we look at the S&P 500, that number is around 57%. So on balance they're roughly the same. There's some marginal difference. The one thing that I would say is, you know, for the Dow Jones again there are rules. I think a lot of, you know, folks are sort of like, oh, it's a price weighted index, but there's actually more rules to it. One of the rules is that a company has to be headquartered in the US and that also the Majority. This is plurality. Very hard word for someone like me to say it's plurality. But I'll say majority of revenues should be derived from the US So there are some constraints there that actually make this more us natured than say the S&P 500, which has some of those constraints on us domicile. Not comparing or contrasting that one is better than the other. But if I look at these companies, there are blue chips that operate in the US that drive a lot of the revenue from the US So it is a very more US centric portfolio, all else equal.
Michael Batnik
So you mentioned that there's a rule that between the top and bottom holding there has to be a certain relationship. Is there a limit on the size of the biggest stock in the index? Can you not get over 10% or something like that?
Matt Bartolini
Oh, in terms of the overall weighting, yeah.
Michael Batnik
Is there a ceiling on how big a stock can get in the index?
Matt Bartolini
Not in the index methodology there isn't. I think because of that 10x multiplier, it really depends upon what you're putting in there on the bottom. Because all of a sudden that can really change the math quickly. If say a company hits on all the other criteria in terms of the sustained growth, excellent reputation and they have a $5 share price, that all of a sudden becomes extremely hard to have something like Amazon or Goldman in there, which have much higher share prices.
Ben Carlson
Sorry, you mentioned the 10x multiplier twice, but could you expand on that? Because I see Goldman at $723 and Verizon at 42. And I won't do the math at the top of my head lest I embarrass myself. But that's more than 10.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah. So in the rules, the index committee monitors whether the highest price stock in the index has a price more than 10 times that of the lowest. So something they're monitoring. It's not a hard and fast rule that all of a sudden it kicks it off. And a lot of that comes in through the index inclusion of it, because it sort of has a governor, if you will, on including the highest of high priced stocks. Again, going back to our Amazon example where they did the stock split this.
Ben Carlson
Sort of in the weeds and not really relevant for anything other than my own curiosity, but if you add up the 30 stocks, just the price, that doesn't get you to the price of the index, right?
Matt Bartolini
No, they have a very dynamic divisor.
Ben Carlson
That will, like each individual name does, or the index itself.
Matt Bartolini
The broader index will when you divide it back instead of just doing In a market cap weighted fashion. Right. If you were to take the market cap of Apple and divide it by the full market capitalization of the index, you get Apple's weight and here they're taking the price of Apple and dividing it by this divisor to then give you the associated weight that would give a normalized price weighted basis. So it could be tracked over time. And that's the dynamic nature of the divisor. So it's actually what is sort of billed as maybe basic price weighted. There's actually a lot of sophistication that goes into it.
Michael Batnik
Well, I always say that the s and P500 is the biggest, the world's largest momentum strategy. And I know it's not momentum in like the quant sense of the term, but it's you let your winners ride. And I guess being price weighted, the Dow kind of does that too, right?
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, to some extent. I mean, without the sort of attention towards the value of, of that price, meaning the market capitalization. So yeah, the higher, higher price stocks, they're going to be higher weighted, but they might not be the best performing either. Right. Because if one stock goes from 100 to 50, that's a 50% decline in value. If the $500 stock drives by 50 points, that's not going to be as much.
Ben Carlson
So Matt, when you talk to either advisors or retail or institutional investors, whoever the end user is, how do they tell you that they're using this within their overall asset allocation?
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, so it sort of stretches the gamut on this. You know, when we have conversations across different retail platforms, we'll have a conversation about education and investing. Education and about, you know, if you have that, you know, first thousand dollars that you want to put to work, you know, how could you do it in a very diversified fashion in companies that you would uniquely know? Right. You can walk down the street, you could probably see 10 out of the 30 stocks just on Main street in the USA. So something like DIA and the Dow Jones Index, that's something that's a very early investor can invest in and have their, their capital potentially grow over time, given the long term buy and hold nature of it. So think of it as like an entry point to investing. Because you are diversified, you do have that balance across different economic sectors. And it's also pretty easy to understand. It's 30 well known stocks, price weighted. It's nothing too sophisticated. Obviously you get into the weeds, you start to peel back the onion a bit and you get to some hard math. So there's that entry point, but also we think about in a broader context for say large wealth platforms that are building those asset allocation models. You obviously have this idea of core and satellite now something like the s and P 500, very, very broad based 500 stocks. You're going to mix it up with international and developed. You can have all this sort of robust asset allocation. The Dow Jones is probably not going to be your core, your one and done core investment. But I think it's something that could be added to a portfolio to give you a different approach to US equities where you do have some overlap, but you're going to have more stability from a company profile. You are going to have lesser volatility historically, not significantly less. But you can have raise up some of the quality profile, that blue chippiness as we were talking about earlier to your portfolio and have it as a bolt on to something that is more broad based, that has maybe 1,000 stocks or 500 stocks. So we see it playing out that way.
Michael Batnik
I've heard real estate investors before say they like investing in real estate as opposed to stocks because it's tangible, it's something that they know and can see. And I guess that makes sense why more retail investors would be invested in this because it's something they hear on the news, it's something they're comfortable with in terms of an entry point. That's a good point you made that this is something people have heard people talk on the news about. It shows up in every ticker you see. And the companies, when you see the list, you know them all. So I, I guess from a comfort standpoint that actually makes sense for why people would be comfortable investing in something like this.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, I mean it's like one of the oldest investing adages, you know, Peter lynch was know what you own. Right. And a lot of these companies are very, very well known and I think that really resonates with a lot of investors. But more importantly those that are really new to building wealth and accumulating capital over time.
Ben Carlson
If we had to put all of our money in just one Dow component.
Michael Batnik
No, I'm just kidding.
Ben Carlson
So Matt, I was talking with Ben earlier this morning about the year that is 2025. And I don't know how to quantify this because we tried a few different ways and it didn't, didn't go well. But the market is up 9% year to date, give or take. Talking about, talking about the SB here. So forgive me, but we are more than halfway through the year and it seems like A miracle. Given all the tumult, the headlines, the anxiety, the investor sentiment, maybe that's a good way to measure it. How do you think about 20, 25 year to date?
Matt Bartolini
I think it is a market of many subplots that have just been woven together and ended up landing the plane, so to speak. So all of the macro noise was very short term in nature in terms of trade policy, like the actual most onerous ones. And ultimately it just comes back to the fundamentals. And we're up 9%. I think largely that's probably where earnings per share growth on a full year basis is going to net out. So essentially the market's up what earnings is essentially saying they should be. From an earnings growth perspective. It's like that old adage of, you know, in the short term the market's a voting machine, but the long term the market's a weighing machine. And I think that's kind of playing out a little bit in this year where absent of those periods where we get fundamental data, the market only has macro to rely on for direction. And if you're only relying on macro, it's just chaotic, it's frenetic, there's just too many headlines to keep track of. But when the fundamental all of a sudden gets the hand of the steering wheel gets a little bit calmer because the fundamental news, on balance, it's actually been pretty positive in terms of earning per share growth company beats. So I'd say it's the dichotomy between macro noise and fundamental stability and it really wrecks havoc on a day everyday basis when one has more control over the other.
Michael Batnik
That's a good point because we try to build all these macro narratives and then the way to really see if they're happening or not is through the earnings. Right. Are people still spending, are companies still investing? And earnings just keep moving higher and expectations are higher now too. So obviously the corporations have moved past any of the weird trade headlines as well. And you're right, it hasn't come to fruition in terms of what they said it was going to do. But that earnings continues to be the key, right?
Matt Bartolini
Yeah. And I think the logical cause and effect between macro headlines and then company earnings has sort of broken down because the macro headlines to some extent are unreliable. Not saying that they're fake or anything like that, but unreliable in saying this is just a talking point. This might actually not become policy. It actually might change in the next five or six days. There's actually probably seven different path dependencies as a result of this trade proclamation, if you're trying to build up that binomial tree, there'd probably be a thousand different tree levels to it where maybe 10 years ago there's more predictability about how foreign policy would be implemented. A great example, I was about to go into a meeting on April 9 and I had all this entire framework prepared to talk about the current market and then there was a pause on the tariffs and basically I had to redo a 50 minute talk in like five minutes. So, like, try to think about that from like a company perspective.
Ben Carlson
Interesting times we live in. All right, I'm going to end it here with this question. Lot of noise, lot of anxiety around the path of returns this year. How have investors behaved inside of the ETF wrapper and you all at State Street. And credit to the rebranding. Looks, looks beautiful. Have over a trillion dollars in ETFs. So if anybody can answer this question, it's you.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah. So I think they've responded in focusing on resiliency, so building more resilient portfolios to pressing macro risks in a more uncertain market environment. And I think I could probably sum it up in sort of three ways they've been doing more resiliency. The first is in terms of, we look at equity allocations. US equity relative to non US equity. Right. Last year in 2024, 86% of all flows for equities went into the US that is a massive amount of concentration. And when you're concentrating like that into one area, you're going to inherit the boom bus profile of that area pretty significantly. And when you have a redrawing of the geopolitical paradigm, where perhaps, you know, US Asset exceptionalism may not be met, may not be continuing in the same way it did over the last 15 years, for the next 15 years, going more overseas where the valuations are more conducive and perhaps the fiscal impulse to ease and offer stimulus to offset any drags from trade could perhaps boost markets in those regions. So we've seen more flows into the non US equities than they had in 2024. So roughly, I think it's like 48% of the flows over the last three months have gone into non US equity ETFs in the equity space. That's the first one. The second one is more usage of fixed income ETFs. So fixed income ETFs have taken in $206 billion through the first seven months of the year. That is the fastest ETFs. Fixed income ETFs have ever gotten to $200 billion in any other year on record. And they're likely to probably have close to 400 billion of inflows on a full year basis, which would be a massive record. So diversifying that equity book, shorter term bonds.
Michael Batnik
That's really interesting in the context of a bull market.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, I mean they're under allocated. A lot of people are under allocated in the fixed income space because in 2022, when you thought the market was going down, bonds were not that balanced to offset some of the equity volatility. And actually we're seeing a lot more active fixed income in its own right. They're on their record pace too, because active fixed income management in this type of market environment with tight credit spreads and significant interest rate volatility can actually prove to being very valuable. And then the third one is non traditional market exposures. So commodities inflation linked bonds, multi asset portfolios that can differentiate return profile through different periods of economic weather, those ones have actually seen allocations too as well. So building on more resiliency, not being so concentrated that they were in 2024 and sort of trying to plan for a new economic sort of global paradigm where past trends have now given way to sort of future uncertainty.
Ben Carlson
Great stuff, Matt. Appreciate the time today. Always good talking to you.
Matt Bartolini
Yeah, thank you guys.
Michael Batnik
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Animal Spirits Podcast Summary: "Talk Your Book: The People's Index"
Release Date: August 11, 2025
Hosts: Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson
Guest: Matt Bartolini from State Street Investment Management
In this episode of the Animal Spirits Podcast, hosts Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson delve into the intricacies of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), affectionately referred to as "The People's Index." Sponsored by State Street Investment Management, the discussion centers around the history, structure, and relevance of the DJIA in today's investment landscape.
The conversation kicks off with an exploration of the DJIA's longevity and unique characteristics:
Historical Context:
Michael Batnik (00:49) notes, "The Dow has been around since 1896. 1897, is that correct?"
Ben Carlson (00:58) confirms, "I think it's 1896."
Price-Weighted Index:
Michael highlights, "One of the weird things about the Dow is that it's a price-weighted index..." (00:58). He explains that the DJIA's price-weighting methodology stems from historical limitations in computing power, making it the simplest index to calculate at the time of its inception.
Investability:
Michael (01:42) emphasizes, "The Dow is not just what you hear on the news, actually, it's actually investable," referencing the DIA ETF with nearly $40 billion in assets.
The hosts compare the DJIA to the more widely recognized S&P 500:
Public Perception:
Ben Carlson (03:09) observes, "We're talking about the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If you turn on TV, whatever newspaper, it is always the first thing... people think about the Dow."
Sector Weightings:
Matt Bartolini (05:04) explains the DJIA's sector allocations, noting a heavier weighting in financials (26%) compared to the S&P 500's tech-heavy composition (33%).
A deep dive into how the DJIA is constructed and maintained:
Selection Criteria:
Matt (04:12) outlines that the DJIA comprises 30 blue-chip U.S. companies selected based on reputation, sustained growth, and revenue primarily derived from the U.S. This ensures broad sector representation across the American economy.
Price Weighting Nuances:
Ben Carlson (05:19) criticizes the arbitrary nature of price-weighting, questioning why companies like McDonald's and Walmart are weighted based solely on stock price rather than market value.
Index Calculation Sophistication:
Matt (07:03) counters by explaining the dynamic divisor used in DJIA calculations, adding sophistication beyond mere price averaging.
The discussion transitions to the practical aspect of investing in the DJIA through the DIA ETF:
ETF Popularity and Demographics:
Matt (14:26) suggests, "this ETF is actually a microcosm of all the different user bases of ETFs," indicating widespread use among retail, institutional investors, and various financial products.
Diversification Benefits:
Ben Carlson (15:30) points out, "If you want exposure to the US stock market, but you don't want to have 35% of your portfolio or whatever the number is in the top seven names...," highlighting the DJIA as a viable diversification tool despite its concentration.
Exploring how corporate actions like stock splits impact the DJIA:
Impact of Stock Splits:
Matt Bartolini (12:15) discusses the rarity and consequences of stock splits within the DJIA, using Amazon's split as an example to illustrate how such actions can affect index composition and weighting.
Index Stability:
The DJIA is characterized as a more "buy and hold" index with minimal turnover, ensuring stability over time compared to the more frequently rebalanced S&P 500.
Analyzing the DJIA's performance amid 2025's market conditions:
Year-to-Date Growth:
Ben Carlson (24:13) remarks on the market's 9% YTD growth amid ongoing tumult, questioning the underlying factors driving such resilience.
Fundamental Stability vs. Macro Noise:
Matt Bartolini (24:51) attributes the market's performance to strong earnings growth overshadowing short-term macroeconomic volatility, stating, "the market's up 9%. I think largely that's probably where earnings per share growth on a full year basis is going to net out."
Earnings as a Decisive Factor:
Michael (26:12) concurs, emphasizing that "earnings continues to be the key."
Matt Bartolini shares insights into State Street’s strategic shifts in ETF allocations:
Resiliency Focus:
Matt (28:10) outlines three primary strategies:
Adaptive Investment Approaches:
These strategies aim to build more resilient portfolios amidst evolving macro risks and shifting global economic dynamics.
Wrapping up the episode, the hosts and Matt Bartolini underscore the DJIA’s enduring relevance and adaptability:
Cultural Resonance:
Matt (23:45) notes, "It's something that people hear on the news about. This is 30 well-known stocks... that's an early investor's entry point."
Investment Simplicity and Familiarity:
The DJIA offers a straightforward, easily understandable investment vehicle, making it appealing for newcomers and seasoned investors alike.
Strategic Portfolio Placement:
Ben Carlson (22:51) and Matt (21:20) discuss incorporating the DJIA as a core or supplementary component within broader asset allocation models to enhance portfolio stability and quality.
Michael Batnik (00:58): "The Dow has been around since 1896."
Matt Bartolini (05:04): "It covers a broad range of sectors and industries... US large cap, blue chip, well-known firms."
Ben Carlson (05:19): "It's kind of remarkable how the composition of the index really makes no sense. Like why would you weight stocks by their price?"
Matt Bartolini (07:03): "There's a lot of sophistication that goes into it... you get a normalized price-weighted basis."
Matt Bartolini (24:51): "It's the fundamentals all of a sudden gets the hand of the steering wheel gets a little bit calmer because the fundamental news... has been pretty positive."
Matt Bartolini (28:10): "They've been doing more resiliency... building more resilient portfolios to pressing macro risks."
This episode of Animal Spirits Podcast offers a comprehensive exploration of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, highlighting its historical significance, structural uniqueness, and practical investment considerations. Through insightful discussions with Matt Bartolini, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of how the DJIA operates within the broader financial ecosystem and its role in contemporary investment strategies.