(New York)

Any investor in ETFs will have noticed the marked rise of “factors” over the last few years. These are technical or conceptual overlays that managers use to create a theme for a fund. They are generally predicated on some type of data, like “quality” or “momentum”, both of which are well-studied. However, lately there has been an explosion of new factors which are being employed in funds. The problem is that many of these are not being observed on a long enough timeline to see if they are relevant. In practice, this means that a lot of funds are predicated around strategies that do not have any proof of concept.

FINSUM: So we have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, some factors seem clearly frivolous, while others which may also be quite new, seem to be a good angle on the current market environment. The key is to be very discerning in choosing these types of funds.