Pioneering Investment Research

Bruce Jacobs and Ken Levy pioneered the “disentangling” of numerous factors that influence stock returns

Proprietary Approach

Ongoing in-house research creates proprietary models 

Multidimensional

Our multidimensional process combines human insight, finance, and behavioral theory with the latest quantitative and statistical methods

Dynamic

Our dynamic, forward-looking approach pursues opportunities in changing market environments

Committed to innovative equity research

As the pioneer of the “disentangling” process that helped revolutionize equity investing, we manage equity strategies for a prestigious global roster of institutional clients.

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Latest News

Nov 01, 2024

Building on Finance Theory to Forge the Future of Investment Practice

by Bruce I. Jacobs and Kenneth N. Levy, Journal of Portfolio Management, Special 50th Anniversary Issue, November 2024: Neoclassical assumptions and a preference for parsimony have diminished the usefulness of academic pricing research when applied directly to complex, dynamic, and behavioral real-world markets... This article challenges those assumptions and presents examples of the authors’ research highlighting efforts to bridge the gap between theory and application. An active, dynamic, multifactor approach called smart alpha will help overcome the limitations of smart beta by accounting for a wider range of factors and changing market conditions. Mean-variance analysis will not yield optimal portfolios for leverage-averse investors, but mean-variance-leverage analysis will by accounting for investor aversion to leverage risk. Enhanced active equity long-short strategies provide improved efficient frontiers and portfolio efficiency by relaxing the long-only constraint while maintaining full benchmark index exposure. Asynchronous, discrete-time, dynamic simulations are more useful than continuous-time finance models for explaining the behavior of financial markets.

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Nov 01, 2024

How Misunderstanding Factor Models Set Unreasonable Expectations for Smart Beta

by Bruce I. Jacobs, Kenneth N. Levy, and Sangwoo Lee, Journal of Portfolio Management, January 2025 (published online on November 1, 2024): The poor performance of some smart beta strategies in recent years is due to shortcomings of standard factor pricing models, from which the strategies draw their well-known factors... Inevitably, these factors include some that may fall out of favor, sometimes for extended periods, as market conditions change. Smart beta strategies also are limited by the standard factor models’ narrow focus on a handful of generic factors and a failure to take into account correlations between factors. Overcoming these limitations requires further steps toward a fully active, dynamic, multifactor approach, aka “smart alpha.”

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Oct 14, 2024

Nobel Economics Prize Goes to 3 Professors for Research into Economic Consequences of Colonialism

by Rob Kozlowski, Pensions & Investments, October 14, 2024: Economists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for research explaining how institutions created by European colonizers affected the long-term prosperity of their colonies. “When focused on the... extraction of resources, colonizers created inefficient economic and social institutions that persisted due to a ‘commitment problem’ — a belief that promises of political reform could not be trusted,” Bruce Jacobs said. “Whether a population was able to mobilize and become a threat determined whether it became trapped or was able to transition to more equitable institutions.” The laureates’ research “reinforces the conclusion that emphasizing democracy and inclusive institutions goes hand-in-hand with the goals of fighting poverty and promoting economic development,” Jacobs added.

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Bruce Jacobs Remarks “Collaborating with Harry Markowitz: A Remembrance”
JOIM Spring Conference UC San Diego
March 25, 2024
Bruce Jacobs Remarks “Harry Markowitz Celebration of Life”
JOIM Spring Conference UC San Diego
March 25, 2024
Bruce Jacobs Interview
"Jacobs Levy: The Art and Science of Investing"
Davos 2020, TBD Media
January 2020
Bruce Jacobs Interview
Portfolio Management Research
New York City
Interviewed February 2020
Released May 2020

Concepts that form the foundation of our approach

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Security prices, technology, and prediction

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We are a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.