Scientific Beta

Funds Europe: "Amundi, which has more than €800 billion assets under management, recently formed a partnership with EDHEC Risk Scientific Beta, creating a further addition to what is already a strong research department. This has been essential in educating clients on the subtleties found in smart beta."

Funds Europe 17/09/2014

"(…) Amundi, which has more than €800 billion assets under management, recently formed a partnership with EDHEC Risk Scientific Beta, creating a further addition to what is already a strong research department. This has been essential in educating clients on the subtleties found in smart beta. Samama says: “About one third of our institutional clients are already using smart beta, and roughly another third is considering it in the near future. “Our clients are now trying to understand and analyse the pros and cons of each strategy.” Trottier says that generally, investors have either used smart beta already, and are looking for new options to complement their existing positions, or are just beginning to discover how smart beta could work for them. “It is important that they know that smart beta products will perform differently in varying market regimes. We try to make sure they clearly understand what is behind smart beta, and how they can make best use of it.” In June, Amundi launched the Global Equity Multi Smart Allocation Scientific Beta Ucits ETF, which is linked to the EDHEC-Risk Institute’s Scientific Beta Developed Multi-Beta Multi-Strategy Index. Trottier says: “We have decided to play a lot on the diversification aspect by mixing four main risk factors with five popular diversification strategies. The solution works for agnostic clients, who do not have a preference between minimum volatility or maximum deconcentration or equal weightings, and that’s also a way of being quite resistant – it’s a kind of all-weather behaviour.” (...)"