IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v18y2011i4p652-660.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A note on the returns from minimum variance investing

Author

Listed:
  • Scherer, Bernd

Abstract

Disappointed with the performance of market weighted benchmark portfolios yet skeptical about the merits of active portfolio management, investors in recent years turned to alternative index definitions. Minimum variance investing is one of these popular concepts. I show in this paper that the portfolio construction process behind minimum variance investing implicitly picks up risk-based pricing anomalies. In other words the minimum variance tends to hold low beta and low residual risk stocks. Long/short portfolios based on these characteristics have been associated in the empirical literature with risk adjusted outperformance. This paper shows that 83% of the variation of the minimum variance portfolio excess returns (relative to a capitalization weighted alternative) can be attributed to the FAMA/FRENCH factors as well as to the returns on two characteristic anomaly portfolios. All regression coefficients (factor exposures) are highly significant, stable over the estimation period and correspond remarkably well with our economic intuition. The paper also shows that a direct combination of market weighted benchmark portfolio and risk based characteristic portfolios will provide a statistically significant improvement over the indirect pickup via the minimum variance portfolio.

Suggested Citation

  • Scherer, Bernd, 2011. "A note on the returns from minimum variance investing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 652-660, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:18:y:2011:i:4:p:652-660
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539811000442
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    2. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Optimal Versus Naive Diversification: How Inefficient is the 1-N Portfolio Strategy?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1915-1953, May.
    3. Ledoit, Oliver & Wolf, Michael, 2008. "Robust performance hypothesis testing with the Sharpe ratio," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 850-859, December.
    4. Louis K.C. Chan & Jason Karceski & Josef Lakonishok, 1999. "On Portfolio Optimization: Forecasting Covariances and Choosing the Risk Model," NBER Working Papers 7039, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ravi Jagannathan & Tongshu Ma, 2003. "Risk Reduction in Large Portfolios: Why Imposing the Wrong Constraints Helps," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1651-1683, August.
    6. Tinic, Seha M & West, Richard R, 1986. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: A Revisit," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(1), pages 126-147, February.
    7. Hansen, Bruce E., 1992. "Testing for parameter instability in linear models," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 517-533, August.
    8. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    9. Isabelle Huault & V. Perret & S. Charreire-Petit, 2007. "Management," Post-Print halshs-00337676, HAL.
    10. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    11. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:4:p:1651-1684 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Chan, Louis K C & Karceski, Jason & Lakonishok, Josef, 1999. "On Portfolio Optimization: Forecasting Covariances and Choosing the Risk Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 937-974.
    13. Jobson, J D & Korkie, Bob M, 1981. "Performance Hypothesis Testing with the Sharpe and Treynor Measures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 889-908, September.
    14. Guo, Hui & Savickas, Robert, 2010. "Relation between time-series and cross-sectional effects of idiosyncratic variance on stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1637-1649, July.
    15. Blitz, D.C. & van Vliet, P., 2007. "The Volatility Effect: Lower Risk without Lower Return," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-044-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Maillet, Bertrand & Tokpavi, Sessi & Vaucher, Benoit, 2015. "Global minimum variance portfolio optimisation under some model risk: A robust regression-based approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(1), pages 289-299.
    2. Adam ZAREMBA, 2015. "Low Risk Anomaly In The Cee Stock Markets," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(3), pages 81-102, September.
    3. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, December.
    4. Cheng Yan & Ji Yan, 2021. "Optimal and naive diversification in an emerging market: Evidence from China's A‐shares market," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 3740-3758, July.
    5. Zakamulin, Valeriy, 2017. "Superiority of optimized portfolios to naive diversification: Fact or fiction?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 122-128.
    6. Stadtmüller, Immo & Auer, Benjamin R. & Schuhmacher, Frank, 2022. "On the benefits of active stock selection strategies for diversified investors," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 342-354.
    7. Kees G. Koedijk & Alfred M.H. Slager & Philip A. Stork, 2016. "Investing in Systematic Factor Premiums," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(2), pages 193-234, March.
    8. Erindi Allaj, 2020. "The Black–Litterman model and views from a reverse optimization procedure: an out-of-sample performance evaluation," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 465-492, October.
    9. Allen, D. & Lizieri, C. & Satchell, S., 2012. "Mean-Variance versus 1/N: What if we can forecast? (Updated 22nd December 2013)," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1244, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    10. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Francisco J. Nogales & Raman Uppal, 2009. "A Generalized Approach to Portfolio Optimization: Improving Performance by Constraining Portfolio Norms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 798-812, May.
    11. Candelon, B. & Hurlin, C. & Tokpavi, S., 2012. "Sampling error and double shrinkage estimation of minimum variance portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 511-527.
    12. Jan Bastin, 2015. "Volatility Effect: An Application on the German Stock Market [Efekt nízkého rizika: Aplikace na německý akciový trh]," Český finanční a účetní časopis, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(1), pages 36-54.
    13. Cai, T. Tony & Hu, Jianchang & Li, Yingying & Zheng, Xinghua, 2020. "High-dimensional minimum variance portfolio estimation based on high-frequency data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 214(2), pages 482-494.
    14. Caldeira, João F & Moura, Guilherme Valle & Santos, André Alves Portela, 2013. "Seleção de carteiras utilizando o modelo Fama-French-Carhart," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 67(1), April.
    15. Thomas Conlon & John Cotter & Iason Kynigakis, 2021. "Machine Learning and Factor-Based Portfolio Optimization," Papers 2107.13866, arXiv.org.
    16. Flögel, Volker & Schlag, Christian & Zunft, Claudia, 2021. "Momentum-managed equity factors," SAFE Working Paper Series 317, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    17. Kourtis, Apostolos & Dotsis, George & Markellos, Raphael N., 2012. "Parameter uncertainty in portfolio selection: Shrinking the inverse covariance matrix," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 2522-2531.
    18. Herz, Christian & Neunert, Daniela & Will, Sebastian & Wolf, Niko J. & Zwick, Tobias, 2012. "Portfolioallokation: Einbezug verschiedener Assetklassen," Bayreuth Working Papers on Finance, Accounting and Taxation (FAcT-Papers) 2012-01, University of Bayreuth, Chair of Finance and Banking.
    19. Santos, André A.P. & Moura, Guilherme V., 2014. "Dynamic factor multivariate GARCH model," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 606-617.
    20. Mathijs Cosemans & Rik Frehen & Peter C. Schotman & Rob Bauer, 2016. "Estimating Security Betas Using Prior Information Based on Firm Fundamentals," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 1072-1112.

    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:eee:empfin:v:18:y:2011:i:4:p:652-660. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    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.