In this update, we will revisit our original intentions for creating the Two Sigma Factor Lens, and also explore the expansions we have made in the years since.

The start to 2022 has been full of surprises and we’re not even through the first month of the year!

We discuss how the Occam's razor principle can be applied to investment decisions, namely around asset allocation and manager evaluation.

We use the monthly returns to determine the 2020 factor exposures of major hedge fund categories using HFR indexes.

We analyze how dramatic shifts in the risk characteristics of stocks during the coronavirus pandemic impacted the sector composition of Venn’s Low Risk equity style factor.

In the first of three posts in our Inflation series, we cover how Venn’s Local Inflation factor is constructed, what it means to have exposure to the factor as we’ve built it, and a summary of the factor’s historical performance.

Factor analysis can help investors confirm that a fund’s underlying risk exposures align with its stated style or approach. We did this exercise on a large scale, analyzing funds within four Morningstar mutual fund categories. We found that a number of them appeared to have unexpected factor exposures on Venn relative to their category.

Momentum and Trend Following are similar in that they both intend to capture momentum, or the tendency for an asset to persist in its relative (or absolute) performance. In what ways do these factors differ, and why does it matter?

Mike Nigro, the Head of Client Solutions Research at Two Sigma, takes us through a bacon cook-off adventure to illustrate the importance of evaluating investment performance in excess of well-known factors. Make sure you have some bacon around because you’ll be craving it when you finish reading the article.

In investing, and in life, you do not always get compensated for taking risk. Therefore, it is important to not only understand the risks in your portfolio, but also to determine which of those risks you are getting paid to take and which you are taking without any compensation.