Investors increasingly embrace “smart beta” investing, by which we mean passively following an index in which stock weights are not proportional to their market capitalizations, but based on some alternative weighting scheme. Examples include fundamentally-weighted indices and minimum-volatility indices. In this whitepaper we first take a critical look at the pros and cons of smart beta investing in general. After this we successively discuss the most popular types of smart indices that have been introduced in recent years. Read more about ‘smart beta’ investing.
Sponsored Content
How smart is ‘smart beta’ investing?
Partnered Content
Igneo Infrastructure Partners: Middle Market. Maximum Impact
Sponsored Content
Top1000funds.comAugust 6, 2025
Sponsored Content
Looking beyond the confines of geography in global investing
A growing number of asset owners are looking to decrease their allocation to equities, citing elevated risk, based on findings from the 2025 CIO Sentiment Survey, a collaboration between Top1000funds.com and Deloitte management consultancy, Casey Quirk.
Leng OhlssonMarch 11, 2025
Sponsored Content
Implementing factor strategies in the corporate bond market
While factor strategies have been running for decades in equity markets, their application to corporate bonds has been pioneered in Robeco. There are many similarities between equities and credits and also important differences: in particular the liquidity of corporate bonds. Read more about this new white paper »
Haki CrisdenJune 14, 2016
Sponsored Content
Low-volatility evidence dating back to 1873
As new historical databases are opening up, there are great opportunities for out-of-sample tests of market anomalies. Research shows that the volatility effect also existed in the 19th century. Read more » Sponsored Content
Haki CrisdenMay 25, 2016
Sponsored Content
Factor Investing Book, 2nd edition
The 2nd edition of Robeco’s Factor Investing Book is out, which brings together ten articles that Robeco researchers have published over recent years. The book consists of three parts: strategic allocation to factor premiums, understanding the factor premiums and how to implement factor investing in an efficient way. Request a hard copy of the book »
Haki CrisdenApril 11, 2016
Sponsored Content
Residual Equity Momentum for Corporate Bonds
It is well documented that equity momentum has predictive power for corporate bond returns. We show that an equity momentum strategy applied to corporate bonds exhibits significant time-varying exposures to common equity and bond risk factors. Find out more about the residual momentum strategy. Read the research paper » Sponsored Content
Haki CrisdenApril 6, 2016
Sponsored Content
Factor Investing in the Corporate Bond Market
We provide empirical evidence that the Size, Low-Risk, Value and Momentum factors have economically meaningful and statistically significant risk-adjusted returns in the corporate bond market. Since the factors capture different effects, a combined multi-factor portfolio halves the tracking error compared to the individual factors. Read the research paper » Sponsored Content
Haki CrisdenApril 5, 2016