Best of: Rethinking US Equity Exposure
Sept 8, 2026In this encore episode, Darim Abdullah joins hosts Zayla Saunders and Hilly Cutler to examine the differences in U.S. equity exposure — from the concentration risks of market-cap-weighted indices to how equal weighting can broaden a portfolio’s return drivers and reduce reliance on a handful of mega-cap names.
Zayla Saunders is Vice President of ETF Online Distribution at BMO Global Asset Management (BMO GAM) and Hilly Cutler is Director of Portfolio Consulting and Senior Portfolio Consultant at BMO GAM. They are joined by Darim Abdullah, Director of ETFs and Portfolio Consulting at BMO GAM. This episode was recorded live on June 1, 2026.
ETFs mentioned:
Capex: Capital Expenditures
EAFE: Developed markets in Europe, Australasia, and the Far East
Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index: The flagship benchmark for the U.S. investment-grade, fixed-rate bond market, commonly called “the Agg”.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The total monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period, serving as the main measure of a nation’s economic size.
Magnificent 7: A group of seven high‑performing U.S. technology and tech‑adjacent companies — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla.
Provision for Credit Losses (PCLs): An estimated expense charged against income to account for potential unrecoverable loans or bad debts.
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