IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1808.02505.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Combining Independent Smart Beta Strategies for Portfolio Optimization

Author

Listed:
  • Phil Maguire
  • Karl Moffett
  • Rebecca Maguire

Abstract

Smart beta, also known as strategic beta or factor investing, is the idea of selecting an investment portfolio in a simple rule-based manner that systematically captures market inefficiencies, thereby enhancing risk-adjusted returns above capitalization-weighted benchmarks. We explore the idea of applying a smart strategy in reverse, yielding a "bad beta" portfolio which can be shorted, thus allowing long and short positions on independent smart beta strategies to generate beta neutral returns. In this article we detail the construction of a monthly reweighted portfolio involving two independent smart beta strategies; the first component is a long-short beta-neutral strategy derived from running an adaptive boosting classifier on a suite of momentum indicators. The second component is a minimized volatility portfolio which exploits the observation that low-volatility stocks tend to yield higher risk-adjusted returns than high-volatility stocks. Working off a market benchmark Sharpe Ratio of 0.42, we find that the market neutral component achieves a ratio of 0.61, the low volatility approach achieves a ratio of 0.90, while the combined leveraged strategy achieves a ratio of 0.96. In six months of live trading, the combined strategy achieved a Sharpe Ratio of 1.35. These results reinforce the effectiveness of smart beta strategies, and demonstrate that combining multiple strategies simultaneously can yield better performance than that achieved by any single component in isolation.

Suggested Citation

  • Phil Maguire & Karl Moffett & Rebecca Maguire, 2018. "Combining Independent Smart Beta Strategies for Portfolio Optimization," Papers 1808.02505, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1808.02505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1808.02505
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ang, Andrew & Hodrick, Robert J. & Xing, Yuhang & Zhang, Xiaoyan, 2009. "High idiosyncratic volatility and low returns: International and further U.S. evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-23, January.
    2. Frazzini, Andrea & Pedersen, Lasse Heje, 2014. "Betting against beta," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 1-25.
    3. André F. Perold, 2004. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 3-24, Summer.
    4. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    5. Phil Maguire & Stephen Kelly & Robert Miller & Philippe Moser & Philip Hyland & Rebecca Maguire, 2017. "Further evidence in support of a low-volatility anomaly: Optimizing buy-and-hold portfolios by minimizing historical aggregate volatility," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(4), pages 326-339, July.
    6. Yensen Ni & Yi-Ching Liao & Paoyu Huang, 2015. "Momentum in the Chinese Stock Market: Evidence from Stochastic Oscillator Indicators," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(S1), pages 99-110, January.
    7. 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)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jordan Bowes & Marcel Ausloos, 2021. "Financial Risk and Better Returns through Smart Beta Exchange-Traded Funds?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-30, June.
    2. Kamil Korzeń & Robert Ślepaczuk, 2019. "Hybrid Investment Strategy Based on Momentum and Macroeconomic Approach," Working Papers 2019-17, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.

    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. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, June.
    2. Matthias M. M. Buehlmaier & Kit Pong Wong, 2020. "Should investors join the index revolution? Evidence from around the world," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(3), pages 192-218, May.
    3. Phil Maguire & Stephen Kelly & Robert Miller & Philippe Moser & Philip Hyland & Rebecca Maguire, 2017. "Further evidence in support of a low-volatility anomaly: Optimizing buy-and-hold portfolios by minimizing historical aggregate volatility," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(4), pages 326-339, July.
    4. Shiyang Huang & Xin Liu & Dong Lou & Christopher Polk, 2024. "The Booms and Busts of Beta Arbitrage," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(8), pages 5367-5385, August.
    5. 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.
    6. Flögel, Volker & Schlag, Christian & Zunft, Claudia, 2022. "Momentum-Managed Equity Factors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    7. Poon, Percy & Yao, Tong & Zhang, Andrew (Jianzhong), 2022. "The alphas of beta and idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    8. S. Ciliberti & Y. Lemp'eri`ere & A. Beveratos & G. Simon & L. Laloux & M. Potters & J. P. Bouchaud, 2015. "Deconstructing the Low-Vol Anomaly," Papers 1510.01679, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2015.
    9. Flögel, Volker & Schlag, Christian & Zunft, Claudia, 2021. "Momentum-managed equity factors," SAFE Working Paper Series 317, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    10. Blanco, Ivan & De Jesus, Miguel & Remesal, Alvaro, 2023. "Overlapping momentum portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-22.
    11. Malcolm Baker & Mathias F. Hoeyer & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2016. "The Risk Anomaly Tradeoff of Leverage," NBER Working Papers 22116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Blitz, David & Pang, Juan & van Vliet, Pim, 2013. "The volatility effect in emerging markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 31-45.
    13. Malcolm Baker & Terence C. Burnham & Ryan Taliaferro, 2016. "Public Goods with Punishment & Payment for Relative Rank," Working Papers 16-33, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    14. Antonio Amendola & Dennis M. Montagna & Mario Maggi, 2019. "Analysis of Equity Beta Components: New Results and Prospectives in a Low Beta Framework," Journal of Economics and Financial Analysis, Tripal Publishing House, vol. 3(1), pages 1-26.
    15. Zaremba, Adam, 2019. "Price range and the cross-section of expected country and industry returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 174-189.
    16. Pyo, Sujin & Lee, Jaewook, 2018. "Exploiting the low-risk anomaly using machine learning to enhance the Black–Litterman framework: Evidence from South Korea," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-12.
    17. Wan-Ni Lai & Yi-Ting Chen & Edward W. Sun, 2021. "Comonotonicity and low volatility effect," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 299(1), pages 1057-1099, April.
    18. Asgar Ali & K. N. Badhani, 2021. "Beta-Anomaly: Evidence from the Indian Equity Market," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 28(1), pages 55-78, March.
    19. Blitz, David & Vidojevic, Milan, 2017. "The profitability of low-volatility," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 33-42.
    20. Malvika Saraf & Parthajit Kayal, 2022. "How Much Does Volatility Influence Stock Market Returns? – Empirical Evidence from India," Working Papers 2022-215, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:1808.02505. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.