Quant hedge funds have had a bad year. One of their core factor, value, a staple of investment for many years, has strongly underperformed.

Quants rely on backtests to see what has performed / is performing well. In a changing universe, models naturally have short lifetimes as a result. In this covid world, the past really doesn’t reflect the future anymore, and many models do not work at all. Some quants have self-doubt on the validity of their approach (see the previous post on Inigo Fraser Jenkins).

It’s probably way too early to call for the demise of quant investing, but COVID surely brings a regime shift.

Credits to Robin Wigglesworthat Financial Times