Cliff Asness Comes To Terms With Smart Beta

AQR managing and founding principal Cliff Asness has been an outspoken opponent of smart beta for years. He doesn’t take issue the actual investment strategy, which is similar to the value oriented strategies he himself puts to use, but with the terminology, having listed it as one of his top ten pet peeves earlier this year.

“Even if it’s not the term we’d have chosen, it is being so widely used, we concede. Language is, after all, a democratic process,” he and John Liew write in a new article. But he still wants to make sure everyone is clear that smart beta isn’t new and isn’t beta, though...