New research shows that companies that adhere to positive ESG principles have lower costs of capital, higher valuations, are less vulnerable to systemic risks and are more profitable. But beware; those higher valuations translate to lower expected returns for investors.
One of the most popular and successful strategies over the last decade has been low-risk (i.e., low-beta or low-volatility) investing. New research shows that those strategies have persisted even after the publication of the research documenting their existence, and that they can be pursued in low-cost, low-turnover portfolios.
Given the dramatic underperformance of value stocks since 2017, it’s understandable that many are abandoning the strategy, believing that the premium has vanished. But, studious observers of market history know that value faced similar death sentences previously, only to undergo a rapid reincarnation and deliver spectacular returns.
A new study examined the impact of emotions on investments, financial risk and life in general, providing important insights and lessons for advisors.
The poor performance of the Fama-French factors over the last decade has led many to question the existence of the premiums. But new research shows that those 10 years were not unique, and that factor-based investing have prevailed following periods of underperformance.
With lower expected returns on the horizon, endowment managers are questioning whether standard annual spending rates will be sustainable and whether certain spending formulas are better suited for the muted environment investors face.
Every January, I start keeping track of the predictions for the upcoming year. With the arrival of the second quarter, it’s time for my first review of how those forecasts played out.
Of all the disruption inflicted on the capital markets, negative interest rates cause the most head scratching. Why would anyone invest with the certainty of a loss? New research explains the perverse behavior induced by negative rates – and offers a stern warning for investors.
Despite the important role financial advisors play in the design of client portfolios, we know very little about how those portfolios are constructed. New research shows, however, that the model portfolios used by advisors suffer from a number of structural inefficiencies.
Advisors had little use for actively managed funds over the recent bull market; index funds did exceptionally well. But just when those actively managed funds were most needed – over the recent market downturn – they failed to protect investors.
Here’s why the market crashes even without more bad news, like it did in October 1987 and from late 2007 through March 2009. But this time is different because there is a new set of actors on the stage, exacerbating the problem.
Beware of companies that rapidly grow their assets on their balance sheets. The stocks of those companies are more likely to “crash” over the next three to five years, according to newly published research.
The unexpectedly large number of swings that follow a shock are generally just noise – the interaction of panicked sellers and greedy speculators trying to find the bottom – but should be expected, as aftershocks tend to cluster following a shock.
Small-value investors can choose between index funds and passively managed, structured products. While index funds have lower costs, they don’t offer the same degree of exposure to the small-cap and value factors. Here is how that difference has played out in three prominent funds over the last eight years.
The popularity of ESG investing strategies has driven up the valuations of those stocks. New research shows that ESG investors should brace themselves for lower returns – and that underperformance may come at the worst possible time.
There are predictable patterns in security returns that conflict with market efficiency. If there are behavioral explanations, these are called anomalies. A new study looks at whether “insiders” exploit those anomalies – and whether investors can benefit from observing insider trading patterns.
In recent years, U.S. stocks have far outperformed international stocks, and growth stocks have far outperformed value stocks. That has led many to question the benefits of diversification and ask what they should do when an investment strategy performs poorly. This podcast will answer that question.
Over the past decade, and particularly over the last several years, there has been a dramatic increase in ESG investing strategies. That has coincided with robust economic and market performance in the U.S. New research examines whether strong ESG returns are likely to be tied to a strong economy and market.
Every January, I start keeping track of the predictions for the upcoming year I hear in the financial media and from advisors and investors. Today we’ll look at a list of “sure things” I’ve been hearing for 2020.
With all the attention that is paid to macroeconomic variables and forecasted growth, it’s vitally important to understand the role that the economy plays in portfolio returns – in particular, the returns of the value, beta and size factors.
At the start of 2019, I compiled a list of predictions that so-called “gurus” had made for the upcoming year for a consensus on the year’s “sure things.” It is now time for my final review.
New research confirms that stocks with high projected earnings growth underperform those with low projections. This anomaly is due to underlying behavioral biases that also explain why value has underperformed growth over the last decade – and why value is poised for a reversal.
Since 2002, S&P Dow Jones Indices has published its SPIVA reports, which compare the performance of actively managed equity funds to their appropriate index benchmarks. It also puts out a pair of scorecards each year that focus on persistence of performance. Here are the latest results.
Quantitative value investors have traditionally relied on price-to-book as the metric to classify stocks. But new research shows that price-to-enterprise value is a more powerful tool to construct portfolios. That research also sheds light on the question of whether the value premium is risk- or behaviorally-based.
Every year, the markets provide us with lessons on prudent investment strategies. Many times, markets offer investors remedial courses, covering lessons it had taught in previous years. That’s why one of my favorite sayings is that there’s nothing new in investing, only investment history you don’t yet know.
Market forecasters know their fallibility, which is why they rarely offer predictions with specific timeframes – it would make it too easy for fact-checkers like me to hold them accountable. When one prominent forecaster – John Mauldin – boldly attached a five-year horizon to his predictions, it gave me an opportunity to look back and do just that.
It has been my tradition to informally rate the investment-related books I read in the past year. I have also included some novels and books of general interest. Here is my list of winners and losers.
Proponents of investing with an ESG mandate often claim that those strategies do not entail a performance sacrifice relative to an appropriate non-ESG benchmark. But new research shows that such claims are problematic.
Factor-driven investing, while highly popular among equity investors, has not been widely adopted in the bond market. But new research shows how to construct highly efficient fixed-income portfolios using factors, as well as the ongoing importance of reducing expenses.
Academic theory predicts that the volatility implied by the VIX index will be greater than the realized volatility. That difference can be thought of as an insurance premium investors are willing to pay because volatility tends to spike when stocks crash, as in the last bear market. New research confirms that investors can profit from this and that such a strategy is uncorrelated with other traditional sources of return.
Factor performance, as conceived by Fama and French and refined by others, is based on adding the returns of a “long” portfolio of securities that most embody the factors to a “short” portfolio that least represent the factors. But it is common practice for mutual funds and ETFs to use only the long portfolio. New research show that this approach does effectively capture the returns of the underlying factors.
Earlier this year, passive management was attacked in two high-profile articles. Those criticisms were proven to be false – and driven by active managers seeking to protect their livelihoods. But that still left the question, which I now examine, of whether flows to passive funds have increased certain risks.
S&P’s SPIVA scorecard provides persuasive evidence of the futility of active management. But its most recent scorecard illustrates something else – why active managers underperform even in the best performing asset class.
A long-sought goal of advisors is a cost-effective way to hedge one’s equity holdings. I previously wrote about why put options fail to achieve this goal. In this article, I consider whether volatility-based products are any better.
An ESG mandate fulfills the noble goal of aligning investors’ portfolios with their personal values and beliefs. But new research affirms what financial theory predicts: Those investors will incur a penalty in terms of risk-adjusted performance.
REIT investors can diversify through a fund or ETF tied to an index, such as the FTSE NAREIT Index. But new research shows that a factor-based approach will have superior risk-adjusted returns.
Do factor premiums survive implementation costs? To answer this question, I’ll examine the returns of live mutual funds to see if they have been successful at capturing the returns of small-cap and value premiums.
Despite its importance, insurance risks are often overlooked. And it is my experience that one of the most overlooked risks is excess personal liability insurance – coverage provided by an umbrella policy.
Is the lack of a size premium due to the performance of small-growth stocks in general? Or is it due to penny stocks, IPOs, stocks in financial distress and lottery-like small-growth stocks? Several recent studies answer those questions.
Capital-gains-aware strategies significantly improve after-tax returns. Moreover, shunning dividends lowers the pretax expected return of commonly used factor strategies and has little impact on after-tax returns.
At the start of 2019, I compiled a list of predictions that so-called “gurus” had made for the upcoming year, along with some items I heard frequently from investors, for a consensus on the year’s “sure things.” It is now time for our third quarter review.
New research on the low-risk anomaly – the fact that less risky stocks have had higher risk-adjusted returns – reveals exactly which types of stocks are likely to perform poorly over time, especially in a bear market. If the funds and ETFs you own lack construction rules to screen out those stocks, you will be exposed to unnecessary risks.
Recent studies show that the returns to equity investors have historically come from a relatively small number of stocks. Investors who fail to adequately diversify increase their chances of failing to own those high-performing stocks, and they are not compensated for the risks they do bear.
Private equity investing has created enormous wealth for those fortunate to be the general partners of a fund. But for regular investors – the limited partners – recent studies show that when properly adjusted for risks PE returns lag those of the less risky public markets. Moreover, there is little evidence that investors can identify, in advance, the very few PE funds that will outperform.
Interest rates are falling and with that comes a series of problems investors must confront. There are the obvious implications, like lower returns from bonds. But the more pernicious harm will come from thee failure to properly adapt financial plans to current market conditions.
Put options are rightly viewed as the most direct way to protect against losses in equities. But new research shows that they are painfully inefficient and, in the words of the author of that study, provide “pathetic” protection.
Don’t fall for claims by highly respected asset managers that factor-based investing isn’t working. Factor-based strategies have outperformed capitalization-weighted indices over long time horizons.
The performance of U.S. value stocks over the last decade has led many to wonder whether the value premium has been completely eroded. New research from GMO shows that this was due to changes in relative valuations that favored growth over value, but now value stocks are priced attractively.
Each year, high-net-worth families spend huge sums preparing their assets for transition to their heirs. Why do the majority of those plans fail?
Historically, small value stocks have been the best performing equity asset class. But the last 10 years has been a period of dismal performance. With their valuations now at a historically attractive level, small-value stocks are priced to outperform.
