Dimensional Fund Advisors, 2002 Essay

The weekly performance of the stock has a trend of constant growth with a significant growth in price compared to the IBM stock which happened in week four to six (09/30/11-10/06/16). A major factor for the large jump in the stock price is due to the shocking current news of Google acquiring Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Right after the announcement of

DFA’s investment strategy is based on their belief in the principle that stock market is efficient. They attempt to match a broad-based, value-weighted small-stock index and position themselves in the market as a passive fund manager that still claimed to add value by capturing specific dimensions of risks identified by financial science. DFA’s investment strategy incorporates elements of both passive and active management. It is passive in the sense that like many other index managers, it focuses on the importance of diversification, lower turnover and lower fees than actively managed portfolios. It is active in the sense that it develops its small-value stock focus based on academic research and uses certain techniques (such as

| A consumer would be interested in DFS, as they want them to produce high-quality, value-for-money products and the after-sales service in order to make any future sales. As they are the purchaser of the good, the business is essentially interested in the needs of the consumer. They can have a huge impact on the business as if they receive a poor quality product it would lead to any future sales being lost. This is vital as like every

When considering GSA’s strategic direction, we should first build an understanding of its relative position within the private equity market. GSA’s current value proposition to its clients is: 1) Greater accessibility to private equity firms through GSA’s customized services, allowing less sophisticated clients to progress from a passive fund-of-funds investor into a direct private equity investor, removing the intermediation between the GP and the client; 2) A strategy of “vintage-year diversification”, whereby GSA contributes to funds over a number of different years in order to gain access to many different types of funds; and 3) A compensation structure that is weighted towards carried interest at the expense of fees, ensuring an alignment of interests between GSA and its clients. These strategies have helped the fund retain large and important

The authors jointly examine momentum and value in eight different markets and asset classes. Asness, Moskowitz and Pederson found two main phenomena associated with returns across 8 various markets and asset classes in their research. These findings challenge previous, well-established theories, like the existence of significant premia in value and momentum return strategies across asset classes and global markets. This innovative research includes some new asset classes not previously used, such as government bonds, currencies, and commodities. The authors look to prove the

To keep the characteristics of the funds in line with the Amoco Core investment approach, the following dimensions are considered:

The good news is that both investment styles go through periods when they outperform, so your natural inclination will be in favor at least some of the time. Understanding whether you are a growth or a value investor by preference is critical to investment happiness. It is impossible to get a value investor excited about high-priced, high-growth investments, just as it is impossible to get a growth investor excited about a company that to them looks half dead. The key is style.

DFA’s founders believed in two principals (outside of efficient markets): the value of sound academic research, and the ability of skilled traders to contribute to a fund’s profits even when the investment was inherently passive. By working closely with the academic world, DFA is able to exploit opportunities generated from academic research before others are able to; this creates opportunities for short and long-term excess return. Also, working in stocks that other mutual funds do not participate (micro, small-cap) allows DFA to exploit opportunities in otherwise illiquid stocks. By having a large presence in this market, the company is able to take advantage of trading opportunities with counterparts (liquidity discounts from block purchases).

Thus, this block-trading strategy combined with adverse selection avoidance allowed the DFA to beat the market and thus the benchmark by about 200 basis points over the 20 year period. And as a result became the benchmark for these types of portfolios.

investors are rational and risk averse, meaning they will always value securities with higher returns than securities with lower returns.

1. In a defined-contribution (DC) pension plan, the employee or employer, or both, make regular contributions to the plan. In the US, employees typically set aside a predetermined percentage of their earnings which is deposited to the plan and the employer will match that contribution. Ultimately, the amount of money available to the individual upon retirement is determined by the performance of their investments. Each employee retains the option to choose how to diversify their investments, while the employer will typically provide a “default allocation” option. The options available are generally very varied, and includes a number of index funds and actively managed mutual funds.

To justify whether it works, we first ran a regression on the Three-Factor Fama French Model (Market Excess Return, SMB and HML) from Jan 1972 to Dec 2012 respectively for the High-, 5-, Low-, and High-Minus-Low Portfolio. Then, we added momentum into the model to create a four-factor model (Momentum, Market Excess Return, SMB and HML) for the same period on a monthly basis. (See Exhibit 2).

In order to analyze the momentum effect of different specifications, stocks were divided into ‘winner’ stocks and ‘loser’ stocks according to their rankings.

Equity-fund managers usually use one of three particular styles of stock picking when they make investment decisions for their portfolios. First there is value, where a fund manager uses a value approach search for stocks that are undervalued when compared to other similar companies. Next, there is growth and those funds try to find stocks that are growing faster than their competitors, or the market as a whole. These are often the stocks of well-known established corporations. There is blend where managers buy both kinds of stocks, building a portfolio of both growth and value stocks.

1. The fund deals with technology driven companies due to the expertise of its fund manager in that area; comfortable in prediction of individual stock