Smart Beta (PDF)

In economics, each and every rational decision made is supposed to maximize individual utility. This approach especially applies to the investor in financial goods. In accordance with neoclassical utility optimization, the individual investors are supposed to be willing to exchange investment good in order to maximize their expected future return. This approach anticipates every individual investor to try and estimate the future cash flows of the investment in order to evaluate its current value. Hence, trades at every stock exchange are to be executed at all times where you have two investors differing in their estimation of the intrinsic value of an investment product. As a consequence, every investor is supposed to create a portfolio with assets that in turn maximize his/her expected return. Every investor is supposed to make an individual and rational attempt to maximize his/her utility and to behave in a risk-averse manner. However, according to the neoclassical theory, it is not possible to gain more from an investment than the market does, as long as markets are efficient. Financial markets can be seen as the most efficient markets, if not the only efficient markets in real economy, as, in the market context, information is transferred the fastest and prices are thus adopted nearly instantly. Nevertheless, all investors at the stock exchanges try to make money by using their individual knowledge in order to gain something from investing in some assets. They have of course, at the same time, the possibility to follow the market themselves or to try to bet against the market. Every investor hence always faces the question of whether to trade on the market with his/her own individual knowledge in order to gain some additional utility, or to simply attempt to do the same as the whole market and follow the belief of the market at a whole. The question thus arises of what exactly efficient fund management looks like. This paper will discuss several possibilities which arise in literature and in the real economy when thinking about fund management, and will discuss the rather new concept of "Smart Beta" investments, in particular. The focus of this paper thus lies in the question of whether smart beta concepts serve as potential superior alternatives to the classical passive investment products.