IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aka/soceco/v41y2019i3p331-351.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Performance and Asset Allocation of German Robo-Advisors

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Puhle

    (Department of Finance, Corvinus University Budapest, Hungary)

Abstract

After a short historical perspective on the emergence of robo-advisors and an overview of how they manage other people’s money, we evaluate the performance of five German robo-advisors in the period between May 2015 and December 2018. Performance tests are conducted using Sharpe’s (1966) and Jensen’s (1968) performance methodologies. We also employ the returns-based style analysis of Sharpe (1992) to determine the exposure of robo-advisors to different non-overlapping asset classes. We report the following findings: First, no robo-advisor was able to beat the benchmark before or after considering fees. Second, robo-advisor performance varies greatly in the sample period even for portfolios that should appeal to clients with similar risk preferences. Third, these performance differences remain unexplained after accounting for the different asset allocations.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Puhle, 2019. "The Performance and Asset Allocation of German Robo-Advisors," Society and Economy, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 41(3), pages 331-351, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:aka:soceco:v:41:y:2019:i:3:p:331-351
    Note: This work was supported by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office under project 2018-1.3.1-VKE.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.akademiai.com/doi/pdf/10.1556/204.2019.41.3.4
    Download Restriction: subscription
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C. Jensen, 1968. "The Performance Of Mutual Funds In The Period 1945–1964," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(2), pages 389-416, May.
    2. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    3. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cardillo, Giovanni & Chiappini, Helen, 2024. "Robo-advisors: A systematic literature review," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PA).
    2. Bernd Scherer & Sebastian Lehner, 2023. "Trust me, I am a Robo-advisor," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(2), pages 85-96, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Georges Hübner, 2005. "The Generalized Treynor Ratio," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(3), pages 415-435.
    2. Dariusz Filip & Tomasz Rogala, 2021. "Analysis of Polish mutual funds performance: a Markovian approach," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 115-130, March.
    3. Alexander Kempf & Christoph Merkle & Alexandra Niessen†Ruenzi, 2014. "Low Risk and High Return – Affective Attitudes and Stock Market Expectations," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(5), pages 995-1030, November.
    4. Ladislav Kristoufek & Paulo Ferreira, 2018. "Capital asset pricing model in Portugal: Evidence from fractal regressions," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 17(3), pages 173-183, November.
    5. M Hashem Pesaran & Takashi Yamagata, 2024. "Testing for Alpha in Linear Factor Pricing Models with a Large Number of Securities," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 407-460.
    6. Masset, Philippe & Weisskopf, Jean-Philippe & Cardebat, Jean-Marie & Faye, Benoît & Le Fur, Eric, 2021. "Analyzing the risks of an illiquid and global asset: The case of fine wine," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-25.
    7. Babalos, Vassilios & Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Philippas, Nikolaos, 2012. "Efficiency evaluation of Greek equity funds," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 317-333.
    8. Mevlüt CAMGÖZ & K. Ahmet KÖSE & Belkıs SEVAL, 2018. "Risk and Return Characteristics of Islamic Indices: An Empirical Approach," Istanbul Business Research, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 47(2), pages 124-153, November.
    9. Filip Dariusz & Rogala Tomasz, 2021. "Analysis of Polish mutual funds performance: a Markovian approach," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 115-130, March.
    10. Sebastian Lobe & Christian Walkshäusl, 2016. "Vice versus virtue investing around the world," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 303-344, March.
    11. Ryan Bartens & Shakill Hassan, 2010. "Value, size and momentum portfolios in real time: the cross section of South African stocks," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 35(2), pages 181-202, August.
    12. Coen, Alain & Racicot, Francois-Eric, 2007. "Capital asset pricing models revisited: Evidence from errors in variables," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 443-450, June.
    13. Lars Hornuf & Gül Yüksel, 2022. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Investments: A Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 9724, CESifo.
    14. William Goetzmann & Jonathan Ingersoll & Zoran Ivkovich, 1998. "Monthly Measurement of Daily Timers," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm88, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Oct 2000.
    15. Racicot, François-Éric & Rentz, William F., 2018. "Does Illiquidity Matter? An Errors-in-Variables Perspective/¿Es importante la iliquidez? Un análisis desde el enfoque de errores en variables," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 36, pages 251-262, Enero.
    16. Azhar Mohamad, 2017. "Seeking Negative Alphas Through Shorting," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 18(6), pages 1488-1506, December.
    17. Mark C. Hutchinson & Liam A. Gallagher, 2010. "Convertible Bond Arbitrage: Risk and Return," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1‐2), pages 206-241, January.
    18. Łukasz Dopierała & Magdalena Mosionek-Schweda & Daria Ilczuk, 2020. "Does the Asset Allocation Policy Affect the Performance of Climate-Themed Funds? Empirical Evidence from the Scandinavian Mutual Funds Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-23, January.
    19. Kanis Saengchote, 2020. "Profitability, Investment and Asset Pricing: Reconciling the Valuation and the q-Theory Approaches in the Thai Stock Market," PIER Discussion Papers 124, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    20. Matallin-Saez Juan Carlos, 2008. "The Dynamics of Mutual Funds and Market Timing Measurement," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 1-37, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    robo-advisor; robo-advise; FinTech; style analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aka:soceco:v:41:y:2019:i:3:p:331-351. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kriston, Orsolya (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://akademiai.hu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.