Scientific Beta

IPE: "Providers of smart beta investment strategies have allowed too many misconceptions to circulate about the range of investment management types they market, according to research by EDHEC-Risk Institute. In a paper centred around 10 common but “mistaken” claims about smart beta, the arm of France’s EDHEC Business School said smart beta had drawn fierce criticism from advocates of traditional active management and of passive management alike."

IPE 25/07/2016

"(...) Providers of smart beta investment strategies have allowed too many misconceptions to circulate about the range of investment management types they market, according to research by EDHEC-Risk Institute. In a paper centred around 10 common but “mistaken” claims about smart beta, the arm of France’s EDHEC Business School said smart beta had drawn fierce criticism from advocates of traditional active management and of passive management alike. “Smart beta providers have not only responded to such criticism but have also been vocal about the benefits of their respective approaches, without necessarily agreeing with one another,” it said. (...) EDHEC-Risk Institute said in its conclusion that many of the misconceptions it was debunking corresponded to over-generalisations that failed to acknowledge that the term ‘smart beta’ covers a huge array of strategies that could have very different properties. “In a nutshell, our analysis cautions against such over-simplification and calls for a rigorous and detailed analysis of smart beta strategies,” it said. (...)"