Investors are moving back into higher-rated fixed income after years of comparative neglect, and we noted that asset- and mortgage-backed securities (ABS and MBS) offered diversified risk exposures, together with relative value caused mainly by technical supply-and-demand factors.

‘Smart beta' sounds like an oxymoron. How smart can it be to continue using the same strategy in such fickle markets? A portfolio manager calling on all his skills (‘alpha') in analysing market environments (the source of ‘beta') should be able to outperform an unchanged algorithm, right? And yet, for several decades, findings in behavioural psychology have cast doubt on this assumption.