Cross-sectional volatility is given by the standard deviation of a set of asset returns over a single time period. CSV is critical because it represents the opportunity to outperform a benchmark. In this Research Insight, we present an exact methodology for decomposing CSV into contributions...

In this paper we examine three approaches for capturing equity risk premia. In the "simple" approach, the manager goes long stocks with positive exposure and shorts stocks with negative exposure, but makes no effort to control for other exposures or to minimize risk. In the "pure" approach, the...

The authors present an exact methodology for decomposing cross-sectional volatility into contributions from various factors. Treating country, industry, and style factors equally, they used their framework to investigate several relevant issues in the global equity markets, including the...

We investigate the relative strength of industry versus country effects in the global equity markets during the sample period 1994-2010. In particular, we examine three market segments: (a) the world market, (b) emerging markets, and (c) developed Europe. We employ a factor-based approach to...

While performance analysis is typically conducted on a benchmark-relative basis, risk analysis is often presented on an absolute-return basis. This mismatch between sources of risk and return leads to the pitfall that active management decisions cannot be evaluated on a risk-adjusted basis. In...

In this article, we investigate the relative strength of industry versus country effects in the global equity markets over the sample period 1994–2010. In particular, we examine three market segments: (a) the world market, (b) emerging markets, and (c) developed Europe. We employ a...

We compare the accuracy of risk forecasts from single-country models and GEM2 for portfolios concentrated in single countries. We find that single-country models provide more accurate risk forecasts, consistent with intuition. This demonstrates the importance of local factor structure for...

Risk analysis involves gaining deeper insight into the sources of risk, and evaluating whether these risks accurately reflect the views of the portfolio manager. In this paper, we show how to extend standard volatility analytics to shortfall, a measure of extreme risk. Using two examples, we...