Applications of global equity style indices in active and passive portfolio management

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.The success of the Fama and French 3-factor model in explaining empirical anomalies of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) suggests that style investing which places portfolios out-of-sync with the broad market has the potential to generate significant alpha. Since momentum abnormal return is the only anomaly that is not explained by the 3-factor model, it could well be the third style-based factor in addition to the size and the value factors to complete the model. With the goal of searching for practical mean-variance efficient allocation mechanisms in the global capital market, this study develops and examines the long-only, long-short leverage and market neutral strategies from the global size, value and momentum proxies along with the Morgan Stanley Capital International World Index over the examination period, 1 January 1991 to 31 December 2008