Many stock index funds and ETFs are traditionally offered as market-capitalization weighted, because the constituent indexes are composed like that. I understand the capitalization weighting reduces turnover and thus minimizes trading costs.
However, I have noticed new products on the market that change to an equal-weighted composition of an index instead.
When might an equal-weighted version of an index fund be preferable to a capitalization-weighted version? Is an equal weighted portfolio of stocks necessarily less volatile or providing better risk-adjusted returns than capitalization-weighted?
When might the capitalization weighting be preferred instead?