Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (Deutsche AWM) has listed a range of strategic beta exchange-traded funds on the London Stock Exchange providing investors with equity factor exposure.
The new ETFs, which debuted on the Deutsche Börse on 23 September, provide exposure to the following equity factors: value, quality, momentum and low beta.
The ETFs are physical replication funds and provide a long-only tilt towards their equity factor, with stocks selected on a global basis.
Strategic beta – also commonly termed ‘smart beta’ – is an approach to investment that involves breaking down market risk and return into a number of component parts, or factors, with strategies put in place to take exposure to those factors. The approach has gained credence as a strategic beta strategy post the credit crunch, when many investors found that portfolios established on a geographic and asset class basis were notably more correlated at a time of crisis than had been expected. This led some large pension funds, seeking reliable diversification, to fundamentally change the nature of their asset portfolios in order to invest using a risk factor-based approach. Analysis also suggests that certain individual factor exposures, and portfolios of factor exposures, may provide better risk-adjusted performance in the long term compared with traditional ‘core beta’.
Martin Weithofer, head of strategic beta, says: “Factor-based investing is moving from being a niche investment practice into the mainstream, and the launch of our strategic beta ETFs puts us in a strong position to meet this growing demand.”
