One of the simplest investment strategies out there appears to be an early winner in 2023 after beating the market last year. The Invesco S & P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) rose 2.8% in the first week of the new year, roughly double the gains for the S & P 500. The index was down less than 12% last year on a total return basis, while the S & P 500 fell nearly 20%. RSP YTD mountain The RSP fund rose more than 2% last week. The fund is just a version of the S & P 500 that places an equal amount of money on each member stock, as opposed to weighting the portfolio by market cap. The RSP is rebalanced quarterly and has an expense ratio of 0.2%. The decadelong dominance of Big Tech stocks and the shape of this bear market have combined to make equal weight investing a winner in recent months. The RSP has essentially been underweight technology and overweight smaller groups like energy and materials, positioning the fund well for the current investing environment. Similar funds like the Invesco Russell 1000 Equal Weight ETF (EQAL) have also outperformed. The run has been so strong that, as CNBC’s Michael Santoli pointed out in his weekend column , the S & P 500 equal weight index is trading at a multiyear high versus the S & P 500. Investors have taken notice of the outperformance, with the RSP raking in more than $4 billion of fund flows over the past year, according to FactSet. The upcoming earnings season may be another reason for investors to consider an equal weight fund. By lowering the exposure to some of the biggest stocks on the market, an equal weight fund limits the ability of one bad earnings report to take a significant bite out of a portfolio.
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