February 17, 2020
Low-risk investing has received a lot of attention over the past decade. An intensive academic debate has spurred, and been spurred by, the growing market for low-risk strategies. This article presents five fact and dispels five fictions about low-risk investing.
Working Paper
May 13, 2021
We relate the low risk anomaly in financial markets to the Favorite-Longshot Bias in betting markets and provide novel evidence to both anomalies. Synthesizing the evidence, we study the joint implications from the two settings for a unifying explanation. Rational theories of risk-averse investors with homogeneous beliefs cannot explain the cross-sectional relationship between diversifiable risk and return in betting markets. Rather, we appeal to models of non-traditional preferences or heterogeneous beliefs.
White Paper
April 17, 2020
We describe a hypothetical Tax-Aware Defensive Equity Long-Short strategy, including its construction and pre-tax and after-tax performance. The strategy closely replicates the pre-tax performance of a similar hypothetical tax-agnostic strategy and has the potential to achieve a meaningful tax benefit for a taxable investor.
Journal Article
February 15, 2017
We test whether the low-risk effect is driven by (a) leverage constraints and thus risk should be measured using beta vs. (b) behavioral effects and thus risk should be measured by idiosyncratic risk.
Journal Article
August 21, 2014
The strategy of buying safe low-beta stocks while shorting (or underweighting) riskier high-beta stocks has been shown to deliver significant risk-adjusted returns.
Journal Article
January 1, 2014
A basic premise of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is that all agents invest in the portfolio with the highest Sharpe ratio, or expected excess return per unit of risk, and leverage or de-leverage this portfolio to suit their risk preferences. However, many investors — such as individuals, pension funds and mutual funds — are constrained in the leverage that they can take, and therefore overweight risky securities instead.
Journal Article
November 1, 2013
[Winner of the CFA Institute's 2018 Graham and Dodd Award] What is the secret to Warren Buffett's success? We seek the answer via a thorough empirical analysis in light of some the latest research on the drivers of returns.
Journal Article
October 9, 2013
We show that a quality-minus-junk (QMJ) factor that goes long high-quality stocks and shorts low-quality stocks earns significant risk-adjusted returns in the U.S. and globally. Also, controlling for quality resurrects the otherwise moribund size effect.
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