Dfa Case Summary

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Dimensional Fund Advisors General facts 1. DFA - ranked too far down (96th) by pensions and investments. Should we increase assets? 2. Efficient market philosophy. 3. Sound academic research and skilled traders. 4. 130 employees. 100 in calif, rest in chicago etc. 5. Professors get a cut of profit. 6. Broad product line. Started by managing money for institutions - $25 bn. Nearly all institutional clients are tax exempt. In 1989, started HNW individuals through registered investment advisors (RIAs). Clients paid RIAs for advisory - total charges reasonable. DFA provided RIAs with a low fee product that clients could not obtain themselves. DFA also educated RIA using latest research that RIAs used to advise clients. DFA DID NOT ADVERTISE. Grew RIA businesse to $15bn in 13 years. 7. Core beliefs - diversification, low turnover and low transaction costs. 8. Small cap portfolios based on decliles. Research from Banz. Outperformance from 1926-1970. Size effect (small beat large) shown across countries. DFA added SM funds covering europe, UK, Japan and pacific rim. 9. Fama and french. - Beta alone is not a good predictor of returns. High beta stocks did not outperform low beta stocks. Beta is dead. - High BE/ME is a good predictor of returns. Book to market ratio was the most powerful scaled price variable for predicting stock returns (more than PE and A/ME). - Size effect exists. - High BE/ME ~ value stocks. Low BE/ME ~ growth stocks - growth were typically overhyped? that did not go well with efficient markets hypothesis. DFA believed value stocks outperformed because they were riskier companies. Value stocks could be infested with distressed companies. - 1993 paper - Three factor model: {Small - big, High - low, beta}. Variation in these 3 factors explained the bulk of variation in stock returns (regression analysis). Effects

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