Smart Beta Investering Baserad på Makroekonomiska Indikatorer

Abstract: This thesis examines the possibility to find a relationship between the Nasdaq Nordea Smart Beta Indices and a series of macroeconomic indicators. This relationship will be used as a signal-value and implemented in a portfolio consisting of all six smart beta indices. To investigate the impact of the signal-value on the portfolio performance, three portfolio strategies are examined with the equally weighted portfolio as a benchmark. The portfolio weights will be re-evaluated monthly and the portfolios examined are the mean-variance portfolio, the mean-variance portfolio based on the signal-value and the equally weighted portfolio based on the signal-value. In order to forecast the performance of the portfolio, a multivariate GARCH model with time-varying correlations is fitted to the data and three different error-distributions are considered. The performances of the portfolios are studied both in- and out-of-sample and the analysis is based on the Sharpe ratio. The results indicate that a mean-variance portfolio based on the relationship with the macroeconomic indicators outperforms the other portfolios for the in-sample period, with respect to the Sharpe ratio. In the out-of-sample period however, none of the portfolio strategies has Sharpe ratios that are statistically different from that of an equally weighted portfolio.