Interview Michel Manteau : « We have mainly chosen minimum variance strategies because we seek to reduce the volatility of our equity portfolio »
Michel Manteau, head of portfolio management at CARMF (« Caisse Autonome de Retraite des Médecins de France »), the retirement institution for french doctors tells us more about Smart Beta strategies.
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Strategy Does a liquidity factor premium exist in the stock market?
Academic studies present ample evidence in support of the existence of four factor premiums in stock markets: Low Risk, Value, Momentum, and Quality. Factor investing puts these concepts into practice by enabling investors to allocate their capital explicitly to these (...)
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Interview François Millet: « In some Dutch pension funds, ’Smart Beta’ indices exceed 40% of their core portfolio »
According to François Millet, Product Line Manager ETF & Indexing at Lyxor Asset Management, "Smart Beta" is intended to be located in the core portfolio of institutional investors, weighing generally between 10% and 40% of their passive (...)
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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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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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Pedagogy BNP Paribas L1 Equity World Low Volatility
The Fund BNP Paribas L1 Equity World Low Volatility seeks to outperform the MSCI World Index over a full market cycle with risk reduction objective and limiting tracking error risk level. Absolute volatility is targeted to be lower than the MSCI World (...)
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Strategy 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 called the ‘hidden factor’. To some extent, it was only the advent of smart beta investment strategies that turned his dream into reality, as low (...)
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Strategy The four cardinal “smart beta” virtues, or how to use Plato as an investment philosophy
Etienne Vincent, head of THEAM’s global quantitative management, explains how the four main recurring sources of outperformance in the equity markets, extensively developed in the “smart beta” concept, can be likened to the four cardinal virtues described by Plato, the Greek (...)
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Innovation Amundi unveils the first European Equity Multi-Factor Market Neutral ETF
Amundi ETF continues to innovate with the launch of the first European Equity Multi Factor Market Neutral ETF. Available on Euronext Paris, it will also be listed on the main European stock exchanges in the coming (...)
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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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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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Opinion When Smart Is Not That Smart
Can Beta Become Smarter? Nobel Prize-winning economist William Sharpe introduced the notions of “beta” and “alpha” decades ago. Put simply, Sharpe defined beta as a measure of a portfolio’s sensitivity relative to the market. Under this definition, it is difficult to fathom how (...)
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Strategy Value, the obvious factor
All famous investors from Benjamin Graham to Warren Buffet have, first and foremost, been fervent advocates of value investing. Value can be assessed in very diverse ways and value investing can also suffer from some drawbacks. Here are a few pointers for understanding value (...)
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Opinion Shiny New Name or Genuinely New Idea?
The term ‘Smart Beta’ has recently established itself as the clear winner in the battle to become the investment industry’s preferred label for an eclectic mix of diverse investment strategies. The common thread linking these various ‘Smart Beta’ approaches is the objective of (...)
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Innovation Invesco launches high-dividend, low-volatility ETFs
According to Invesco, Canadian investors are increasingly seeking income from their holdings but they may be concerned about the relatively limited opportunities within the domestic equity market. Foreign equity markets may provide greater (...)
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