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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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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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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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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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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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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Innovation Ossiam ETF on the Risk Weighted Enhanced Commodity Ex Grains TR Index
Using its expertise in systematic asset management, in 2013, Ossiam has set up an ETF offering a long only exposure to a risk weighted enhanced commodity index, based on S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index constituents, excluding (...)
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News Aberdeen adds smart beta fund to quant product range
The Fund offers exposure to five targeted ‘risk premia’ factors: value, quality, momentum, small size and low volatility. The investment objective is to provide investors with risk-adjusted returns with an emphasis on income generation and a volatility well below that of (...)
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Strategy Invest with “style” and outperform
Investment « styles » aim to capture risk premia and/or market anomalies that can be seen structurally over long periods. While no formal classification exists, a distinction is traditionally made between four major style families, not only applicable to equities but also to (...)
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News Amundi extends its Smart Beta and Factor Investing range with a new Dynamic Multi Factor Allocation process
Amundi launches a dynamic multi factor equity range within its Luxembourg international flagship Amundi Funds SICAV: “Amundi Funds Dynamic Multi Factors Euro Equity”, “Amundi Funds Dynamic Multi Factors Europe Equity” and “Amundi Funds Dynamic Multi Factors Global (...)
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Interview Philip Tindall : « We see further development of non-market cap approaches in bonds »
According to Philip Tindall, senior investment consultant at Towers Watson, there has been a lot of interest in smart betas area, and investors are beginning to allocate assets - Towers Watson’s clients have invested more than (...)
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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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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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Innovation Solactive launches Stable Income Europe Index
The index targets investors interested in a smart beta concept that puts more emphasis on the role played by free cash flow yield, aside from tilting composition towards high dividend and low volatility shares. Specifically, free cash flows are typically used to provide an (...)
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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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