Research Affiliates

The supposed benchmark-beating powers of ESG have more to do with investors’ exposure to well-known factors rather than any sustainable secret sauce, according to quant house Scientific Beta.

The Paris-aligned benchmarks that an increasing number of global investors now subscribe to disincentivise activities that might actually help the energy transition, according to index provider Scientific Beta.

US stock valuations based on forecast operating earnings regularly veer into ‘fantasy’ land, according to a new analysis by quantitative investment firm Research Affiliates (RAFI), with reality set to disappoint again in 2023 as recessionary risks remain.

Entrenched inflation will likely last longer and prove harder to stamp out than most investors acknowledge, according to a new analysis from quant shop Research Affiliates.

While nearly 400 investment factors have been proposed in academic journals since 1960, new research calls into question their practicality – and their ability to earn anybody a performance fee.

While proponents believe that cryptocurrencies will inevitably disrupt traditional finance, it’ll be harder than it seems – and less lucrative than they think. As cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have shot to prominence in the last several years, it’s now being taken as a given that they will eventually disrupt traditional finance. Blockchain technology offers…

Implausible doesn’t mean impossible. But it remains to be seen whether the “creative destruction” that ARK Invest is banking on can trump the possibility that we’ve been in a bubble all along. They’re what legendary investor/prophet of doom Jeremy Grantham calls “super-crazies” – the wildly overvalued assets that start to appear shortly before the bubble…

Rob Arnott, the founder and chairman of Research Affiliates, addressed investors on the unanswerable question as to what happens next following the recent rebound in fortunes for value managers. His webinar, on August 5 (US time) begged the question of when it will happen, but he left the audience in no doubt about what was…

Research Affiliates has taken the study of factor timing to a user-friendly new level through a paper which argues that the market’s momentum and valuation are good predictors of economic influences. The paper, by Mike Aked, director of research for Australia, shows that a strategy based on a factor’s discount to historical averages of value…

Value managers are hopeful that, following the second consecutive quarter of the factor’s outperformance, their world has returned to normal. Value may well be back. For the March quarter, for Australian shares, the S&P/ASX 200 value factor index was up 8.50 per cent, making a 12-month return of 42.71 per cent. The S&P/ASX 200 growth…