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Journal Article
Fact, Fiction, and Factor Investing: Practical Applications
September 1, 2023
This piece distills the central concepts and practical takeaways of our Fact, Fiction, and Factor Investing article, which examined many claims about factor investing, referencing an extensive academic literature and performing simple, yet powerful, analysis to address those claims.
White Paper
Value: Why Now? Capturing the Comeback in Its Early Innings
Q1 2023
Value has delivered attractive long-term returns but has also weathered difficult short-term periods. While these times are painful for investors, the subsequent recoveries are lucrative for those that stick with the factor. We summarize the evidence for why we believe long/short value continues to be an exceptional go-forward opportunity and how investors can adapt their portfolios accordingly.
Journal Article
Fact, Fiction, and Factor Investing
December 22, 2022
Factor investing has been around for several decades, backed by an enormous body of literature, and yet it is still surrounded by much confusion and debate. We examine many of the claims about factor investing, referencing the academic literature and performing simple, yet powerful, analysis to address them.
Perspective
The Long Run Is Lying to You
March 4, 2021
Everyone knows the value strategy has been a grave disappointment out-of-sample since, say, 1990, based on realized returns. However, odd as it might sound, the realized average return on a strategy is not necessarily the best estimate of its true long-term expected return. In fact, the right estimate of the true long-term expected return of the value strategy is considerably higher than many might think if they were to just look at simple past returns – especially right now. Why? I explain it in this note (spoiler: it has to do with changes in valuation).
Perspective
Is (Systematic) Value Investing Dead?
May 8, 2020
When value has underperformed for so long, it’s natural and proper that people wonder if it’s ever going to work again. To test the popular explanations for why value investing is “broken,” Cliff tweaks the value factor’s construction to remove the stocks that best fit these stories. He finds no “this time is different” explanation holds water, affirming our belief that the medium-term odds are rather dramatically on value’s side.
Perspective
The Valuesburg Address
February 27, 2020
One score and eight years ago Fama and French brought forth on this world, a new factor, conceived in either risk or behavioral effects, and dedicated to the proposition that all portfolios are not created equal. Now we are engaged in a great drawdown, testing whether investors in that factor, or any factor so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…
Perspective
Never Has a Venial Sin Been Punished This Quickly and Violently!
February 19, 2020
Three months ago in “It’s Time for a Venial Value-Timing Sin,” Cliff demonstrated the value factor’s historic cheapness, suggesting it’s time to “sin a little” and modestly overweight value. While portfolio tilts are seldom promptly rewarded, it’s also rare they are instantly punished. In this piece, Cliff shows how 2020 has been the exception to the rule, as value has begun this year with its worst loss in its decade-long drawdown.
Perspective
It’s Time for a Venial Value-Timing Sin
November 7, 2019
Cliff discusses how to measure whether a factor, in this case the value factor, is itself rich or cheap versus history. The answer, regardless of the approach taken in measuring cheapness, is that value is currently quite cheap compared to history.
Journal Article
How Do Factor Premia Vary Over Time? A Century of Evidence
July 2, 2019
We examine four prominent factor premia – value, momentum, carry, and defensive – over a century from six asset classes. The results offer support for time-varying risk premia models with important implications for theory seeking to explain the sources of factor returns.
Journal Article
Contrarian Factor Timing is Deceptively Difficult (Supplement)
March 21, 2018
A supplement to our paper that investigates the relationship between option richness and volatility across 10 global equity indices.