In the summer of 1992, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French published “The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns” in The Journal of Finance, a groundbreaking analysis that prompted financial presses to run headlines declaring “beta is dead.” While the death sentence may have been a bit severe, it struck a significant blow to a widely-accepted and longstanding financial concept, causing academics and investors to reconsider tenets they once took for granted.
In recent decades, a collection of academic studies, disillusioned investors, and financial innovations have contributed to a similar prognosis for beta’s Greek neighbor, alpha. The idea that was hatched by Brinson and Hood and supported by the likes of Ibbotson and Kaplan and Barras and Scaillet was fueled by years of investor frustration. Following the introduction and rapid rise in the popularity of indexing and ETFs, it seemed that what started out as a scholarly whisper had grown into a deafening roar. The proclamation didn’t come from a single voice or article, but was the collective result of years of research and investor sentiment that has seemingly led to a fatal promulgation: alpha is dead.
Or is it?
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Christian Magoon is the President and Senior Managing Director of Claymore Securities, Inc. He recently took time out of his busy schedule to talk with ETF Database.
Over the last two years, equity markets have cratered, volatility has skyrocketed, and retirement portfolios have been crushed under the weight of a global recession and seemingly unending uncertainty. But over this period, the ETF industry has enjoyed astonishing success, attracting billions of dollars away from traditional mutual funds and redefining the business of long-term [...]
