PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Mehdi Alighanbari AU - Chin Ping Chia ED - Moore, Howard TI - Practical Applications of Multifactor Indexes Made Simple: <em>A Review of Static and Dynamic Approaches</em> AID - 10.3905/pa.2016.4.2.175 DP - 2016 Oct 31 TA - Practical Applications PG - 1--3 VI - 4 IP - 2 4099 - https://pm-research.com/content/4/2/1.10.short 4100 - https://pm-research.com/content/4/2/1.10.full AB - Multifactor Indexes Made Simple: A Review of Static and Dynamic Approaches Mehdi Alighanbari Chin Ping Chia Factor indexes are popular with both institutional and retail investors, who are increasingly using multifactor index allocations in pursuit of more reliable returns and the benefits of diversification.“Most multifactor indexes are constructed in a simple, straightforward way, using a static, equal-weighting scheme,” says Mehdi Alighanbari. “We wondered if we could do better with a more sophisticated and dynamic adjustment of factors over time.” Alighanbar and Chin Ping Chia , both of MSCI , compared the risk and return characteristics of five static and three dynamic weighting strategies to a base case, equal-weighted strategy over a period of 36 years.The authors found that, historically, a simple diversification strategy has outperformed other more complex strategies (especially after accounting for turnover costs.)