Size Investing Research

Outperforming Cap- (Value-) Weighted and Equal-Weighted Portfolios

Antonello Cirulli and Patrick Walker, authors of the December 2023 study “Outperforming Equal Weighting,” examined whether equally weighted portfolios could be enhanced by avoiding negative exposure to some of the most prominent factor anomalies documented in asset pricing literature.

The Financial Distress Puzzle

The empirical research findings demonstrate that the return premium generated by being long low-distress risk stocks and short high-distress risk stocks is persistent and that the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and the Fama-French three-factor models cannot explain it. Hence, we have the distress puzzle, or anomaly.

The Magnificent Seven

When a small subset of companies makes up a large portion of a portfolio, for better or worse their returns will have a greater impact on overall portfolio results.

The “Resurrected” Size Effect and Monetary Policy

Given that tightening monetary policy increases economic risks, Simpson and Grossman provided compelling evidence of a risk explanation for the size factor. For those investors who engage in tactical asset allocation strategies (market timing), their evidence suggests that it might be possible to exploit the information. Before jumping to that conclusion, I would caution that because markets are forward-looking, they should anticipate periods of Fed tightening and the heightened risks of small stocks.

New Accounting Standards and Factor Investing

How well do quantitative investors navigate around the changes to the accounting standards that are endemic to the financial data used in quantitative strategies? The numbers reported on financial statements are wholly governed by regulation and by each firm’s interpretation of those accounting standards.  So how do quants stick to their empirical evidence on old data methods or do they react in terms of the strategy when the change in standards is material?

Size, Value, Profitability, and Investment Factors in International Stocks

Using data on 65,000 stocks from 23 countries, they evaluated the performance of the Fama-French factors, examining the factor premia in global markets to verify their robustness across different company size categories and geographical regions. Their data sample covered the period 1987-2019.

Is Size a Useful Investing Factor or Not?

In his famous 1981 paper, "The Relationship Between Return and Market Value of Common Stocks,” Rolf Banz found that small firms have higher risk-adjusted returns [...]

The Size Effect in Multifactor Portfolios

The lack of a statistically significant size premium in the U.S. since the publication of Rolf Banz’s 1981 paper, “The Relationship Between Return and Market [...]

Fact, Fiction, and the Size Effect

Fact, Fiction and the Size Effect Ron Alquist, Ronen Israel, And Tobias MoskowitzJournal of Portfolio Management, 2018A version of this paper can be found hereWant to [...]

Why the Size Premium Should Persist

As the chief research officer for Buckingham Strategic Wealth and The BAM Alliance, I’m often asked, after any asset class or factor experiences a period [...]

Factor Investing in Practice

Factor Investing from Concept to Implementation Eduard van Gelderen, Joop Huij, and Georgi KyosevWorking paperA version of this paper can be found here[ref]hat tip to Art [...]

Size and Value in China

Size and Value in China Jianan Liu, Rob Stambaugh, and Yu Yuan Journal of Financial Economics A version of this paper can be found here What [...]

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