The complexities of standard optimization can obscure the intuitive decision process that should play a major role in asset allocation. The use of allocation alphas and betas - with U.S. equity as the beta source - facilitates an intuitive approach and greatly simplifies the decision process. A...

A vast literature examines the role of debt in corporate valuation, but most of these works proceed from the vantage point of corporate finance (i.e., ascertaining the effects of adding debt to a previously unlevered company). The investment analyst, however, confronts an already-levered company...

A key determinant of shareholder value is the franchise spread - the company's incremental return on new investments over the cost of capital. Explicitly incorporating this spread into the valuation process paves the way for a more compact, two-parameter formulation of the standard...

Active equity strategies that are highly benchmark-centric will generally have a minimal impact on fund-level volatility. Since most US institutional portfolios are overwhelmingly dominated by their equity exposure, any incremental tracking error will be submerged by the beta effect. Positive...