Low-Volatility or Low-Beta Research
Low Volatility-Momentum Factor Investing Portfolios
INTRODUCTION Factor investing is hard and some factors make it harder than others. A value strategy results in a portfolio of stocks that exhibit temporary [...]
Timing Low Volatility with Factor Valuations
INTRODUCTION Funds flows are frequently analyzed by investors to gauge the demand for investment strategies, but it represents a challenging exercise. Key issues are data [...]
The Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle: Then and Now
One of the interesting puzzles in finance is that stocks with greater idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) have produced lower returns (see an earlier post here). This [...]
Forbidden Knowledge: Long-Only Academic Factors are Also Cool
When Equity Factors Drop Their Shorts David Blitz, Guido Baltussen, and Pim van VlietWorking PaperA version of this paper can be found hereWant to read our [...]
The Quality Factor—What Exactly Is It?
While the quality factor has been identified in the literature (including papers such as “Buffett’s Alpha,” “Global Return Premiums on Earnings Quality, Value, and Size,” [...]
Can We Explain the Low Volatility Anomaly?
One of the big problems for the first formal asset pricing model developed by financial economists, the CAPM, was that it predicts a positive relation [...]
Betting Against Beta (BAB) Construction
One of the more popular equity strategies over the past decade is low volatility investing. Simply put, this is a systematic strategy that invests in [...]
Can Low Vol Strategies Be Improved
My Advisor Perspective article of June 17, 2019 discussed the regime shifting nature of the low volatility anomaly—low volatility stocks have outperformed high volatility stocks, [...]
Factor Investing Research On Steroids
Factor Premia and Factor Timing: A Century of Evidence Antti Ilmanen, Ronen Israel, Toby Moskowitz, Ashwin Thapar, and Franklin Wang Working paper A version of [...]
Compound Your Knowledge Ep. 14: Sentiment and Bonds, Volatility, & ESG
In this week's video, we examine four articles. The first article, written by Elisabetta, examines a trading strategy on bonds (duration) using news sentiment. The [...]
Volatility Targeting Improves Risk-Adjusted Returns
There’s a large body of research, including the 2017 study “Tail Risk Mitigation with Managed Volatility Strategies” by Anna Dreyer and Stefan Hubrich, that demonstrates [...]
Volatility Anomalies: IVOL and Vol-of-Vol
Two of the more interesting puzzles in finance are related to volatility—stocks with greater idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) have produced lower returns and stocks with high [...]
Low Volatility Can Be Low Turnover
Low Volatility Needs Little Trading Pim van Vliet Journal of Portfolio Management A version of this paper can be found here Want to read our summaries [...]
Video: Alpha Architect Weekly Research Recap (Jack & Ryan)
You can watch the video via the link below: Video Summary Ryan and I discuss three articles published on our blog this week. First, we [...]
How Leverage Constraints Effect Mutual Fund Risk Taking
The 2014 study by Andrea Frazzini and Lasse Heje Pedersen, “Betting Against Beta,” found strong support for low-beta strategies. I’ve previously written on low-beta strategies [...]
The Conservative Formula: Quantitative Investing made Easy
The Conservative Formula: Quantitative Investing made Easy Pim van Vliet and David Blitz A version of this paper can be found here. Want to read our [...]
Deconstructing the Low Volatility/Low Beta Anomaly
One of the big problems for the first formal asset pricing model developed by financial economists, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), was that it [...]
Explaining the Beta Anomaly
The superior performance of low-beta and low-volatility stocks was documented in the literature back in the 1970s — by Fischer Black (in 1972) among others [...]
Investor Attention and the Low Volatility Anomaly
One of the big problems for the first formal asset pricing model developed by financial economists, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), was that it [...]
Explaining the Demand for Higher Beta Stocks
The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) indicates returns should go up linearly as beta increases (in other words, risk and return are positively related). However, [...]