ESG Investing
ESG Ratings: A Compass without Direction
August 2, 2022
We examine the recent concerns about the reliability of the assessments of ESG ratings providers. We review the demand for ESG information, the stated objectives of ESG ratings providers, how ratings are determined, the evidence of what they achieve, and structural aspects of the industry that potentially influence ratings. We find that while ESG ratings providers may convey important insights into the nonfinancial impact of companies, significant shortcomings exist in their objectives, methodologies, and incentives which detract from the informativeness of their assessments.
Tax Aware
Taxes, Charity, and Hedge Funds: Tax Implications of Charitable Contributions of Leveraged Partnership Interests
January 10, 2022
As a result of recent Treasury regulations, investors in investment partnerships, such as hedge funds, might end up recognizing capital gains when they contribute their partnership interests to a charity. We explain how such taxable gains upon charitable contributions arise and quantify how punitive they might be.
Alternative Investing
The Tax Benefits of Direct Indexing: Not a One-Size-Fits-All Formula
May 7, 2021
An investor holding a direct indexing portfolio can obtain tax benefits by harvesting losses on individual stock positions. We show that investors with allocations to hedge funds and derivatives are the most likely category of investors to have systematic short-term capital gains in their portfolios and, therefore, benefit the most from losses harvested by direct-indexing strategies. We show how tax benefits are affected by equalizing the tax rate applicable to long-term and short-term capital gains.
Tax Aware
Integration of Income and Estate Tax Planning
September 1, 2020
Preservation and transfer of wealth to future generations is one of the central financial goals for most high-net-worth families. We show that a family that invests with income and estate tax efficiency in mind can achieve substantially higher wealth levels than a family oblivious to taxes.
Value
Value and Interest Rates: Are Rates to Blame for Value’s Torments?
May 22, 2020
Some have blamed the interest rate environment for value stocks’ underperformance of growth stocks from 2017 to early 2020, as well as the stretch of lackluster performance for some value factors since Global Financial Crisis. We find the performance of value is not easily assessed based on the interest rate environment, and that factor timing strategies based on interest rate-related signals are likely to perform poorly.
Portfolio Risk and Performance
Portfolio Protection? It’s a Long (Term) Story…
April 23, 2020
Investors have a natural urge to protect their portfolios from sudden crashes, even though bad outcomes that unfold over longer periods are more detrimental to reaching long-term goals. We show risk-mitigating and diversifying strategies have added value more consistently than options-based hedging over the more important, longer drawdowns.
Value
Is (Systematic) Value Investing Dead?
Winner of an Outstanding Article award in the 2022 Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Awards
March 14, 2020
Undoubtedly, many systematic approaches to value investing have suffered recently. However, we find the popular suggestion that value investing is dead to be premature. We find expectations of fundamental information have been and continue to be an important driver of security returns.
Fixed Income
(Systematic) Investing in Emerging Market Debt
March 4, 2020
We extend the analysis of systematic investment approaches to emerging market (EM) fixed income. We find that systematic exposures linked to carry, defensive, momentum and valuation themes are well compensated and lowly correlated in EM markets, and that a systematic approach to EM debt may be a powerful diversifier.
Tax Aware
Tax-Efficient Portfolio Transition: A Tax-Aware Relaxed-Constraint Approach to Switching Equity Managers
March 2, 2020
For a taxable investor with a highly appreciated equity portfolio, replacing the portfolio manager is likely to trigger substantial tax liabilities. We find that a tax-aware relaxed-constraint post-transition strategy significantly outperforms a traditional tax-agnostic long-only strategy in its ability to preserve and grow the investors after-tax wealth over the long term.
Factor/Style Investing
Fact and Fiction About Low-Risk Investing
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.