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Concept
Low-volatility investing
Summary
Low-volatility investing is an investment style that buys stocks or securities with low volatility and avoids those with high volatility. This investment style exploits the low-volatility anomaly. According to financial theory risk and return should be positively related, however in practice this is not true. Low-volatility investors aim to achieve market-like returns, but with lower risk. This investment style is also referred to as minimum volatility, minimum variance, managed volatility, smart beta, defensive and conservative investing.
The low-volatility anomaly was already discovered in the early 1970s, yet it only became a popular investment style after the 2008 global financial crises. The first tests of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) showed that the risk-return relation was too flat. Two decades later, in 1992 the seminal study by Fama and French clearly showed that market beta (risk) and return were not related when controlling for firm size. Fisher Black argued that firms or investors could apply leverage by selling bonds and buying more low-beta equity to profit from the flat risk-return relation. In the 2000s more studies followed, and investors started to take notice. In the same period, asset managers such as Acadian, Robeco and Unigestion started offering this new investment style to investors. A few years later index providers such as MSCI and S&P started to create low-volatility indices.
This investment style is slowly becoming accepted, as many low-volatility strategies have been able to deliver good real-life performance. Several low-volatility strategies have existed for more than 10 years. Most academic studies and most low-volatility indices are based on simulations. Some studies go back 90 years and show that low-volatility stocks beat high-volatility stocks over the very long run (see image). Since low-volatility securities tend to lag during bull markets and tend to reduce losses in bear markets, a full business cycle is needed to assess performance.
Official source
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