“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” — Benjamin FranklinThe Brandes Institute has added a third inevitability to Ben Franklin's famous quip about life's certainties: short-term underperformance among active managers. Over the years, Institute research...

Global micro-cap stocks have provided greater diversification benefits and a more robust long-term value premium than small- and mid- to large-cap stocks. Among the features contributing to these benefits for micro caps worldwide:• a large, diverse universe with little sell-side research...

The Financial Crisis of 2008/2009 increased plan sponsors' desire to control risk — and we are still seeing the unfortunate effects. Many approaches adopted to control risk are illusions of risk control. Of particular concern is how sponsors are misapplying tools designed to monitor...

Now updated through 2006, this article illustrate the potential for periods of short-term underperformance may be one of the few certainties that investors can count on. Our research focuses on the performance results of non-U.S. mutual funds over the last decade. Observations suggest that...

The small-cap premium has not been apparent consistently in developed markets outside North America since 1989. Why? In this comprehensive study, the Brandes Institute investigates existing methodologies for defining the global small-cap universe and their relationship to performance. We also...

Increasing interest in liability-driven investing (LDI) in the pension community has prompted many plan sponsors to seek longer-duration investments. Historically, empirical evidence has guided plan structures toward long-duration bonds as an appropriate liability-matching instrument, citing...

When value and glamour stocks missed earnings expectation targets, what happened to their stock prices over the following year? Prices of value stocks increased when earnings expectations were beat and missed - and even when business fundamentals deteriorated. Glamour stocks behaved more...

In previous research, Global Small-Cap Stocks: Reexamined and Redefined, the Brandes Institute found divergent construction methodologies among global small-cap index providers and introduced a custom series of country and regional small-cap universes to explore detailed historical fundamental...

The Brandes Institute's Value vs. Glamour research has demonstrated the persistent outperformance of value stocks over glamour stocks in developed markets worldwide over long time periods. Investors may wonder if the value premium is also evident in developing countries. In this article, we...