04 May 2017
Investing
Factor investing is NOT an asset class but a solution-oriented philosophy
For some years now, ‘factor investing and smart beta’ has been the hot topic in the financial media. While saturation […]
04 May 2017
03 April 2017
Investing
Can we beat the S&P 500?
US large-cap equities constitute the most liquid and competitive segment among developed equity markets. I often meet investors who believe […]
27 February 2017
Investing
Feeling the factors: how to represent factor exposures
Please note that this article may contain technical language. For this reason, it is not recommended to readers without professional […]
23 February 2017
Investing
Sample size matters
Trying to predict the result of rolling a single dice is notoriously difficult, but predicting the average result from 1 […]
06 December 2016
Investing
How factor investing helps to manage constraints
Adding a constraint to any investment management process can only reduce its efficacy. However, investors often have explicit or implicit […]
01 December 2016
Investing
Overcrowding and other fallacious concerns about factor investing
Factor investing is popular. As frequently happens when the consensus advocates a particular approach to investing and it becomes part […]
25 November 2016
Investing
Resisting the temptation of factor timing
Following a series of posts discussing factor investing with a focus on premiums derived from exposures to the value, quality, […]
24 October 2016
Investing
Is equity factor investing an improvement compared to traditional quantitative strategies?
Factors have been around for quite some time. Most were discovered decades ago and were applied in investment strategies both […]
28 September 2016
Investing
Low volatility, the hidden factor
Robert Haugen, who discovered the low-volatility anomaly in 1972, wrote numerous articles and books to try to popularise what he […]
21 September 2016
Investing
Momentum, the unloved factor
Momentum is unloved: being a good follower is rarely seen as a strength, and few asset managers would brag about […]
19 September 2016
Investing
Quality, the positive factor
Quality is positive: it is about good companies that are efficient at managing their businesses profitably, creating shareholder value and […]
14 September 2016
Investing
Value, the obvious factor
Value is obvious: ‘buy cheap and sell expensive’ is probably the first piece of received market wisdom that any investor […]
22 July 2016
Investing
Factor investing – Chinese portraits of investment factors for equities…
A Chinese portrait is a metaphorical description of something or somebody via a comparison with various things or elements, an […]
21 April 2016
Investing
Four major neglected findings of modern finance
Here are four major neglected findings of modern finance. They have been proven effective in improving risk-adjusted investment returns, based […]
10 March 2016
Investing
How to integrate a low-carbon objective into factor investing
One of the great features of factor investing is that it can be adapted flexibly to a variety of investment […]
26 February 2016
Investing
Prudence paid with a low-volatility strategy in January 2016 (and not just because the market fell)
Equity low-volatility strategies have largely outperformed* their market capitalisation benchmarks in the turbulent times for stock markets since the start […]
17 February 2016
Investing
Big data leading to big changes in asset management
Uber has become one symbol of the way new technologies can rapidly transform a long established business, creating simultaneously chaos […]
28 January 2016
Investing
From the smart beta revolt to the factor revolution
Smart beta investing remains a hot topic in our industry’s forums, conferences and specialist journals. However, what began as a […]
