Mess With Your Process, Not Your Philosophy
“I’m afraid of messing with my process. It might make me worse” - this is one of the most common objections we hear at Essentia.
What’s in a Nudge
We examined our database of real-world portfolio manager behavior and found that managers who engage with nudges, on average, significantly outperform those who do not.
Measurably Better – A New Behavioral Analytics Case Study
Our latest case study shows how the managers of a concentrated, low turnover equity fund were able to unlock over 4% of incremental alpha per year by using Essentia’s behavioral analysis, tailored nudges and expert coaching.
Where Alpha Is Lost and Found
Alpha is the holy grail of active portfolio management but its source has always been elusive - until now. In their latest analysis, our research team break new ground by identifying the factors most commonly associated with alpha generation (and destruction) by equity fund managers.
7 Tips for Decision-Making Resilience in a COVID-19 World
The coronavirus pandemic poses new challenges to the way we manage ourselves and perform. We talk to seven top investment coaches about how to keep making good portfolio decisions in a disruptive and turbulent environment.
The Half-Full Glass: Active Managers CAN Outperform Index Funds, Net of Fees
In a supplement to our Alpha Lifecycle research, we find that disciplined active managers who are able to exit positions at or near the peak of their alpha curve can preserve more than 120 bps outperformance (net of fees), per year, vs index funds.
Don’t Ride a Falling Star
How did the Neil Woodford fund saga become so dramatic - and so destructive? Clare Flynn levy looks beyond traditional risk attribution and style-drift warning signals to explore how unchecked biases brought down this star manager.
The right way for investors to use machine learning
Fund managers need to think outside the machine learning "black box" if they want to get the most from this powerful advance in analytical capability. Market data is simply too complex and noisy for the kind of predictive big data being used in other sectors.
Active management does have a future – and here’s what it looks like
Former PM and buy-side thought leader, Jason A. Voss, considers how the industry will evolve over the next 7-10 years, and the change that's needed to develop a new breed of successful active manager.
REVEALED: What the fund manager said to the allocator
Despite a growing recognition of behavioral alpha, it's clear there are plenty of asset allocators who are still using a traditional framework to identify skilled managers. In the following email exchange, a fund manager challenges this status quo, advocating a new approach which recognises the value of combined human and data-driven decision-making.