Choosing the correct portfolio-construction techniques is very important. The new paper that is written by Amar Soebhag, Bart van Vliet, and Patrick Verwijmeren explores the various ways in which different design choices in portfolio construction can, either intentionally or unintentionally, influence and distort the statistical results of a market factor’s research. Their takeaway is that seemingly small differences in design can significantly impact the resultant portfolio’s performance.

We focused the first part of this article more on tendencies and trends among these US Equity Value strategies. Today we will talk solely about specific top-performing equity value strategies. More specifically, about numbers #7 to #1 from Quantpedia’s ranking. We will also take a look at combining all the value strategies together into a diversified portfolio of value strategies.

Equity Value strategies have suffered hardly during years 2018, 2019 and also 2020. Due to the poor performance of Value during this period, many investors have abandoned the strategy, often expressing view that “Value strategy is not working anymore”. Nevertheless, equity Value strategies have managed a strong comeback recently, turning attention of investors and traders back to them. In our blog today, we will take a close look at many different equity Value strategies, their performance and how they behave. 

This second article offers a different look at high inflation periods, which we already analyzed in What’s the Best Factor for High Inflation Periods? – Part I. The second part looks at factor performance during two 10-year periods of high inflation. What’s our main takeaway? The best hedge for a high inflation period is the value or momentum factor. Other promising factors (energy sector, small-cap stocks, or long-run reversal) don’t perform as consistently as value and momentum.

Another period of long sustained high inflation is probably right around the corner, as the Russia-Ukraine Conflict keeps evolving, and its end is nowhere to be seen. In this article, we analyzed the Consumer Price Index from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, which includes the rate of inflation in the USA since 1913. We found multiple years during which the inflation was abnormally high and analyzed the performance of the known equity long-short factors. The factors with the highest average performance are HML (value stocks), long-term reversal, momentum, and energy stocks. On the other hand, tech stocks, bond-like assets, and the SMB factor should be avoided during the high inflation periods.