Active Quantitative Equity (AQE)
Human led, research tested: Only our best investment ideas survive the rigor of our analysis.
Our Latest Thinking
In Active Quantitative Equity, we view ESG as an alternative, non-traditional quality signal that captures difficult-to-measure corporate characteristics, which are diversifying compared with traditional measures of financial quality. Our upgraded ESG signal embraces the benefits and scale of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board’s reporting framework and State Street Global Advisors’ leading-edge ESG data infrastructure.
The first order effects of the coronavirus shock have been acute, but the longer term will bring more widespread economic impact — likely an economic downturn and subsequent recovery, each of unknown timing, magnitude and duration.
Defensive equity strategies with 80:60 characteristics can meaningfully outperform their regional benchmarks
AQE Strategies
How can our capabilities help solve your investment problems?
78% of our Active Quantitative Equity strategies beat their benchmarks over a five-year horizon.*
"Many people think equity investing is all about finding companies that offer the best returns. We’re focused on the best way to form equity portfolios to deliver the best risk-adjusted returns, in line with the investor’s specific return and risk objectives. Our experience is in applying our investment knowledge across as many companies as possible in a highly objective way."
"Quantitative approaches are relevant to investors who are interested in taking full advantage of the potential of very rich, very diverse universes of companies, such as emerging-markets (EM) small cap. Arguably some of the most attractive companies in emerging markets sit in the small-cap category. In addition, equity returns for EM small-cap firms have historically been less volatile compared with EM large-cap, because the small cap category is more diversified. A quantitative approach can give investors access to some of the smallest-cap companies in the category, expanding the universe of potential investments, which we believe improves our ability to generate risk-adjusted returns."
"Markets are inherently inefficient, and we’re able to go wherever we believe we can take advantage of those inefficiencies. In our Global Defensive Equity strategy, for example, we don’t start off by limiting ourselves to a low-volatility, defensive universe, and then seek to pick the best stocks within that limited universe. In our mind, that’s not optimal. We’d rather consider investment opportunities across the entire universe so that no stone is left unturned."
"Confucius said that real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance. 'Ignorance' is a strong word, but in our world of investing or active money management, there is an enormous amount of uncertainty where investors can be wrong a lot. For us in AQE, it’s about working to stack the odds in our favor, so that when we are wrong, we are wrong a little less often."