A cura di Andrew F Pyne, Equity Strategist di PIMCO
Gli investitori azionari alla ricerca di rendimenti più elevati si rivolgono sempre più al Factor Investing azionario e, in effetti, il Factor Investing può rappresentare il nuovo Azionario Attivo. Secondo Pyne la valutazione delle strategie basate sui fattori si riduce a tre considerazioni chiave:
– Assicurarsi che i fattori siano robusti. Con la crescente popolarità del Factor Investment, il numero di fattori legati agli extra rendimenti sembra crescere ogni giorno. Sfortunatamente, molti di questi fattori sono stati estratti dai dati, quindi è difficile determinare se possano offrire una fonte persistente di extra rendimenti a lungo termine.
– Fare attenzione alle valutazioni. Proprio come le asset class, i settori e le singole azioni possono diventare costosi o economici ed essere sottoposti a mean reversion. La stessa cosa succede ai fattori. Il rischio per gli investitori è che la scelta di una strategia focalizzata su fattori costosi, che possono indicare un commercio affollato, possa ridurre le prospettive future di rendimento.
– Considerare i costi di implementazione. Mentre le commissioni per la gestione di una strategia e il rapporto costi/spese tendono a essere il punto focale per gli investitori, molti potrebbero non rendersi conto che questi sono solo una parte del costo di una strategia di investimento. Per mantenere bassi i costi, le strategie di Factor Investing devono essere progettate in modo da limitare il turnover e da favorire le azioni con maggiore liquidità.
In conclusione, secondo l’esperto di PIMCO, il Factor Investing sta diventando sempre più popolare, e meritatamente. Molte di queste strategie posso potenzialmente dare extra rendimenti rispetto agli indici passivi ad un costo inferiore rispetto alla tradizionale gestione attiva.
Equity investors in search of higher returns are increasingly turning to factor investing. Driving this trend is frustration with the underperformance and higher fees of traditional active equity approaches, along with a growing realization that many stock-picking strategies owe their results largely to the manager’s factor tilts rather than stock-specific risk. So, the reasoning goes, why not gain exposure to these return drivers more cost-effectively and transparently with factor strategies?
Indeed, factor investing may very well be the new active equity, providing investors with exposure to the characteristics of stocks that tend to be associated with higher returns and offering the potential to outperform passive indexes. But how should investors navigate the increasingly crowded factor and smart beta landscape? We think evaluating factor-based strategies boils down to three key considerations.
- Ensure factors are robust. With the rising popularity of factor investing, the number of factors linked to excess returns seems to grow each day. Unfortunately, many of these factors have been data-mined, so it’s difficult to determine whether they could offer a persistent source of long-term excess returns. In fact, we believe the number of factors that are grounded in academic literature and offer a sound rationale for long-term outperformance potential is quite small. Managers who construct factor portfolios often use rigorous quantitative processes to determine their robustness, but as an investor, we suggest asking two simple questions:
- Why should this factor work in the future?
- Who is on the other side of the trade?
The answers to these questions should offer a risk-based or behavioral explanation as to why a factor should be a source of future excess returns as well as an intuitive rationale as to why those return premia should persist.
- Pay attention to valuations. With factor investing, as with any investment strategy, valuations matter. Just as asset classes, sectors and individual stocks can get rich (“expensive”) or cheap and experience mean reversion, so too can factors. For instance, as the chart below shows, the low volatility factor appears expensive today relative to its historical range, while the value factor is relatively cheap. The risk to investors is that choosing a strategy focused on expensive factors, which may indicate a crowded trade, may reduce future return prospects. Diversification across factors is an important way to address this risk, so multi-factor strategies may be an attractive solution. So too are strategies that incorporate factor valuations into their process, for instance by dynamically weighting factors to favor those that look more attractive on a forward-looking basis.
- Consider implementation costs. While a strategy’s management fee and expense ratio tend to be the focus for investors, many may not realize that these are only part of the cost of an investment strategy. An understanding of trading and transaction costs is particularly important with smart beta strategies, given that providers often tout performance results from back-tests that may not account for these expenses. If investors seek to replicate the excess returns observed in back-tests in their live portfolios, evaluating implementation costs is critical. What are the biggest contributors? The amount of trading (turnover) and the cost of that trading (a stock’s bid/ask spread) top the list. To keep costs low, factor strategies need to be thoughtfully designed to limit turnover and to favor stocks with greater liquidity.
Factor investing: harnessing the potential benefits
Factor investing has become increasingly popular, and we think justifiably so. Many of these strategies are positioned to potentially deliver excess returns over passive indexes at a potentially lower cost than with traditional active equity management. But not all factor strategies are created equal, and investors must do their due diligence to select a solution offering robust factors at favorable valuations, with reasonable implementation costs – all key determinants of their future return potential.