Suppose you, as a hypothetical financial advisor, encounter a hypothetical marketer who presents the following hypothetical performance data: Last Year Trailing 3 Years Trailing 5 Years Trailing 10 Years Portfolio 25.0% 11.9% 16.0% 8.8% Benchmark 21.8% 11.4% 15.8% 8.5% Not only did the portfolio beat its benchmark handily in 2017, says our marketer, but Read more […]
The last few days have been a feast of entertainment for the sporting enthusiast; the Champions League Final, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the NBA Conference Finals were all on the menu. While the sports represented are distinct, these events have something notable in common: the persistence of their participants. The same two teams reached Read more […]
In prior blogs,[i] we discussed the return contribution of mega-cap securities in 2017, as well as the impact of style classifications that may give small-cap active managers more autonomy to invest in significantly different risk exposures. In this blog, we look at active factor risks taken by active managers across three market-cap ranges against the Read more […]
Market observers have noted that the S&P 500’s performance so far this year has been dominated by a small number of technology stocks. This observation is certainly correct, although it’s fair to question the relevance of a statistic based on fewer than two months’ data. What’s more important is to bear in mind that this Read more […]
A calendar that offers a forecast for every day of the coming year is not uncommon in Chinese households. I don’t often hear references to the calendar on most days. But every now and again I would hear my mom marvel, “Oh that calendar was right on for today!” In investing, there is also particular Read more […]
If 2016 was unremarkable, 2017 was downright sleepy…at least as far as equity markets were concerned. In 2017, the S&P 500 notched the lowest level of volatility in 27 years. Both dispersion and correlations were among the lowest levels in the same period. This is in spite of a year that was far from lacking Read more […]
The last 16 years have not been kind to active management. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Unless the laws of basic arithmetic change, the theoretical argument on the perils of active management is ironclad. SPIVA data offer solid evidence to back up theory. As the chart below shows, most active managers underperform most Read more […]
In a recent study published in the Financial Analysts Journal, Ang, Madhavan, and Sobczyk (2017)[1] highlighted that using regression-based factor loadings to measure managers’ factor exposures, even when conducted on a rolling basis, can be misleading due to excessively smoothed coefficients, given that active managers adjust their exposures dynamically. The authors argued that holdings-based attribution Read more […]
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal featured a long article arguing that Morningstar’s star ratings for mutual funds were a “mirage.” Since these ratings exert a powerful influence over fund flows, their usefulness is obviously of keen interest to investors. To its credit, Morningstar, although arguing that its ratings are a “worthwhile starting point,” Read more […]
This weekend’s Financial Times brought John Authers’ provocative article on the frequency of financial crises. Along the way, John gives us some excellent advice: “We should all work on the assumption that we do not know what will happen next.” John’s view of crisis prediction applies equally to the quotidian work of investment management. Since we don’t Read more […]
