Why Factor Tilts Are Not Smart “Smart Beta” (Video)

May 2017
By Rob Arnott, Vitali Kalesnik, Mark Clements

We challenge the common view that “smart beta” strategies and factor tilts are the same. In fact, factor-replicated portfolios are poor substitutes for their smart beta counterparts. Performance is poor, turnover is high, and capacity is terrible. Why? Implementation details matter—both for performance and for trading costs.