Asset allocation has the single largest impact on client portfolio returns – yet interestingly is a area where policy is set based on ‘what others are doing’ or some static ratio (e.g. 60/40 equities versus bonds) and is rarely influenced by current market conditions. At Atlas, asset allocation gets the attention it deserves.
In 1992-1993, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French published several academic papers that provided investing ideas that expanded on the classic Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). They showed that over long periods of time, 90% of returns from diversified portfolios can be explained by 1) beta (the essential CAPM factor …
Stock momentum is the concept that a stock that has performed well recently will continue to perform well, and that a stock that has performed poorly will also continue to perform poorly. Behaviorally, people tend to hold on to and buy stocks that have consistently appreciated (even when a company has a …
The size of a company is represented by its market capitalization (number of shares outstanding multiplied by market price per share). Typically, small companies tend to be more risky and produce higher excess returns compared to large companies. This is not always the case, and deviations from this rule can …
The concept of the short term reversal seems at first to be contrary to that of momentum, however the time line considered is the key difference. Stock price momentum is a persistent signal over a period of time thatexcludes the most recent one or two months. In other words, in screening for momentum on December 31st, you might …
At Atlas Capital, we’ve been promoting the merits of factor-based investing for ten years. We emphasize portfolios leveraging well-established risk factors: momentum, size, value and short-term reversal. However, we also recognize there may be exogenous seasonal influences on stock prices. One of the influences observed is known as …
Most investors have bought or sold a public common stock at one point in their lives. The process is quite transparent and simple to understand. Normally, stocks have very tight bid-ask spreads (the price difference between where the current market will buy the stock and where it will sell the stock), fairly deep trade volume such that …
Factor-Based Investing (also known as “Smart Beta”) attempts to identify specific factors historically associated with stronger risk-adjusted returns, and create index weightings with inclination toward one or more of these factors. Factor-Based Investing is indexing re-architected to improve returns. Traditional equity indexes are …
