In March this year, Lia, Kelsey and Paul attended a conference in Sydney, where Ken French was one of the speakers. For those of you who don’t recognise the name, Ken French and Eugene Fama are co-authors and founders of the three-factor risk-return model research that our investment strategies are designed around. These guys write the text books for universities to teach!
L to R: Paul Shepherd, Ken French, Kelsey Dent, Lia Barnard.
Why do you need to know this? Well, there is one thing that we know for certain and that is that the world keeps changing and research keeps advancing, so it is our job to have our finger on the pulse with advancements in the academic world and decipher the innovation from the imitation. We have a pictorial timeline that demonstrates the evolution of investment theory over time.
When thinking about investment strategy, some of the key questions that we require an affirmative response for are as follows:
- Is there robust research to support the strategy?
- Does the strategy follow a process that is proven, documented and repeatable?
- Can the strategy be efficiently implemented in a live setting on a daily basis?
- Is there a body of work or track record that connects the approach to actual results?
With our fundamental investment strategies in place, we then set about sourcing and monitoring the most cost effective investment products that best harness application of the theory and also come with best practice governance and control.
Over the last two years alone, members of the Alman Partners team have travelled to Europe, the USA, Singapore and across the major cities of Australia to gain access to Nobel Laureates in finance such as, Eugene Fama, Robert Merton, Myron Scholes, and many of the leaders in the academic world of finance. To have such an academic and global reach is amazing and something that we are extremely proud of – and something you should definitely know about, as it is a fundamental piece to providing our clients with peace of mind when it comes to their investment experience.