White papers and research exploring quantitative investment management and quant strategies. Quantitative investing research in this section includes academic papers on portfolio optimisation, articles on quant equity strategies for model-driven alpha creation, managing index funds, papers on derivatives pricing, articles on performance attribution analysis and other forms of qiantiative investment analysis. Quantitiative investing styles continue to gain ground as computing power increases and big data and AI approaches become more viable. The "tools" component of this section refers to investment tools which help portfolio managers to do their job. For instance, ETFs may be considered a "tool" to make... a short term allocation to specific asset class or strategy. Investment technology is a "tool" used throughout the investment process. This heading includes research on alpha creation, including: quantitative approaches to asset allocation and investment technology, Big Data, and the role of technology within asset management. For lists of white papers on specific quant topics - such as index investing, derivatives pricing, attribution analysis or trading models for alpha generation - please use the search menu at the top or click on the appropriate selection in the topic menu.
In this report, CFA Institute seek to identify high-impact applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data in investments and best practice in their implementation by examining specific use cases. For this purpose, CFA Institute conducted interviews with investment industry practitioners around the world and from…
This is the second year that DWS has sponsored this report by CREATE-Research. Amongst other insights, this year’s survey confirms the on-going movement of passive investment into the mainstream with 66% of survey respondents considering passive index investing as a mature part of their portfolio.
PGIM's latest Megatrends paper, “The Future Means Business: Investment Implications of Transformative New Corporate Models,” draws on the insights of more than two dozen PGIM investment professionals across our private and public fixed income, equity, real estate and alternatives managers – as well as a new proprietary…
Cheap stocks have been underperforming for the last 18 months, while expensive stocks are overperforming. In fact, current value performance parallels the Tech Bubble and Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This comes as a surprise to many. We have been living through an extraordinary return environment that has, largely, fallen…
Is the combination of real assets in investors’ portfolios meeting their investment objectives? Investors may arbitrarily group real assets into a single category when constructing their portfolios. However, real assets exhibit diverse features and macroeconomic sensitivities that should be carefully assessed during the…
As a part of its 9th annual US ETF Study, Greenwich Associates interviewed 181 institutional investors on the utility of ETFs for portfolio construction purposes, finding that ETFs are now considered as a primary means of obtaining fixed income exposures within institutional portfolios. Liquidity, ease of use, speed of…
Invesco's 4th annual Global Factor Investing Study is based upon interviews with over 240 instutional investors and is the largest in-depth analysis of global factor investing.
We are now already witnessing that the USA is feeling dramatically challenged by China. This is because China’s economy is picking up speed faster and faster, and moving more in the direction of high-tech innovation – which so far has been a domain of the United States. On the other hand, China is observing that the…
In Wall Street parlance a “tenbagger” is a stock in which you’ve made ten times your money. Investors who talk about tenbaggers tend to be looked at with suspicion. They’re either trying to sell a book or sign people up to a newsletter that promises untold riches. However, investors who talk about tenbaggers in Europe tend…
Several major equity benchmark providers maintain rules-based defensive equity portfolios they call indexes – but they shouldn’t be confused with their cap-weighted counterparts. We take a closer look at what options exist and how they differ, their viability as passive investments and how they might be improved, and how to…
Several major equity benchmark providers maintain rules-based defensive equity portfolios they call indexes – but they shouldn’t be confused with their cap-weighted counterparts. We take a closer look at what options exist and how they differ, their viability as passive investments and how they might be improved, and how to…
This study explores which asset classes add value to a traditional portfolio of stocks, bonds and cash. Next, we determine the optimal weights of all asset classes in the optimal portfolio. This study adds to the literature by distinguishing ten different investment categories simultaneously in a mean-variance analysis as…
Among other things, this 32-page issue of Risk & Reward examines how to take a factor-based approach to diversifying oil exposure. Oil investors, fixed income investors and sovereign wealth funds are the main focus of this issue.
In our last report, we showed that in 2017, insurance companies increased their use of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by a significant amount (37% year-over-year). In 2018, insurance companies continued to increase their use of ETFs and, in spite of a market correction in the Q4 2018, held ETF assets in line with long-term…
What, Exactly, Is a Factor? According to BlackRock, as of June 2018 there was $1.9 trillion invested in factor-based strategies—a figure expected to grow by nearly 80% to $3.4 trillion by 2022. There is no question that these strategies have moved to the forefront of investing, but their growing popularity begs the basic…
The foundational lessons of Graham and Dodd provide a recipe for market participants to look at stocks based on a valuation framework and to understand the relative cheapness of stocks. This framework has been used throughout the years, and many have adapted or adjusted it to meet their investment styles or views. At the…
Winner of Financial Analysts Journal Graham and Dodd Awards of Excellence, Top Award 2018.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has realized a Sharpe ratio of 0.79 with significant alpha to traditional risk factors. The alpha became insignificant, however, when we controlled for exposure to the factors “betting…
Crowded trades are often associated with bubbles. If investors can locate a bubble sufficiently early they can profit from the run up in prices. But in order to profit from a bubble investors must exit the bubble before the selloff erodes all of the profits. This paper explains further.
