Strategy How Smart is ‘Smart Beta’ Investing?
Investors increasingly embrace “smart beta” investing, by which we mean passively following an index in which stock weights are not proportional to their market capitalizations, but based on some alternative weighting scheme. Examples include fundamentally-weighted indices (...)
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Note Diversity wins : Persistent investor interest in smart beta, particularly within diversifying strategies
Willis Towers Watson’s institutional investment clients globally allocated $10bn, via 175 selections, to diversifying investment strategies in 2015. Within this grouping, liquid alternatives attracted the most interest with over $8.1bn, of which approximately half is in smart (...)
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Pedagogy iSTOXX™ Europe Minimum Variance
The approach initiated by Ossiam’s research and management team intends to obtain an optimized portfolio that includes a selection of stocks where volatility is among the lowest in the investment universe
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Strategy Why is smart beta a true revolution?
So what is “smart beta”? A mere revolt against traditional indices? No, Sir, it’s a true revolution – the factor investing revolution. The questioning of allegiance to traditional indices, which until now were used broadly despite some serious drawbacks, has only just begun, but (...)
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Opinion Combining Active and Passive management in a Portfolio
In recent years, long-held ideas on portfolio construction have been called into question. Investors can now choose from a range of “smart beta” strategies, offering exposure to market risk premia in a systematic, transparent fashion. Where does the dividing line between (...)
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Opinion Psychology and smart beta
‘Smart beta’ sounds like an oxymoron. How smart can it be to continue using the same strategy in such fickle markets? A portfolio manager calling on all his skills (‘alpha’) in analysing market environments (the source of ‘beta’) should be able to outperform an unchanged (...)
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Strategy How does ‘quantamental’ fit with factor investing?
‘Quantamental’ is a relatively new portmanteau word in asset management lingo. Its creation is indicative of a trend in our industry. Quantamental is the fruit of the marriage of the quantitative and fundamental (also known as judgmental) disciplines in managing (...)
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Strategy Risk factors: taking risk budgeting one step further
An increasing number of pension funds are opting to invest in ‘alternative’ or ‘smart beta’ indices to supplement their passive management activities. Several competing methods currently exist, each with their own objectives. Analysing the risk contribution of each factor by (...)
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Innovation State Street Global Advisors Launches Multi-Factor Global Equity Fund
Today’s launch represents one of the industry’s first UCITS advanced beta multi-factor funds combining three factors: low valuation, low volatility and high quality. All three strategies demonstrate increased risk-adjusted returns over a long-term investment horizon when (...)
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Strategy Controling investment risk in commodities investment
Commodities exhibit unique characteristics including low correlations with bonds and equities and inflation-hedging abilities. These have made commodities an attractive addition to diversified portfolios and have generated growing interest in commodity (...)
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Strategy Risk factor investing explained
Risk factor investing is growing in popularity, but there’s a risk of getting lost in the factor “zoo”. In this Expert Opinion Thierry Roncalli, Head of Quantitative Research at Lyxor Asset Management, explains the concept of risk factors and distinguishes between facts and (...)
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Note Building Minimum Variance Portfolios with low risk, low drawdowns and strong returns
This paper provides an introduction to the STOXX Minimum Variance Indices and aims to achieve three things : i) an overview of minimum variance investing ii) the methodology for the construction and maintenance of the STOXX Minimum Variance Indices, highlighting the unique (...)
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News European Smart Beta ETF Market Trends
European Smart beta ETF market flows are still positive in the second quarter of 2015, but growth has decelerated compared to Q1 2015. NET NEW ASSETS (NNA) year to date (30/06/2015) amounted to EUR 2.3 billion, i.e. 60% of the 2014 NNA within the first half of the year. Total (...)
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Strategy Quality, the positive factor
Quality is positive: it is about good companies that are efficient at managing their businesses profitably, creating shareholder value and being rewarded with above average returns. Yet, quality is not always easy to recognise or measure. Here are a few pointers for avoiding (...)
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News ETFGI reports assets invested in Smart Beta equity ETFs/ETPs listed globally have increased 18.3% in 2017 to reach a new record of US$630 Bn at the end of August
ETFGI reported today that assets invested in Smart Beta equity ETFs/ETPs listed globally have increased 18.3% in the first 8 months of the year, reaching a new record of US$630 Bn at the end of August 2017...
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