Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Finance |
Founded | 1981 |
Founders | David G. Booth Rex Sinquefield |
Headquarters | Austin, Texas, United States |
Key people | David G. Booth (Executive Chairman) Dave Butler (Co-CEO) Gerard K. O'Reilly (Co-CEO) |
Products | Money Management and Investment |
AUM | $677 billion (Dec 31, 2023) [1] |
Number of employees | 1,600+ (2023) [2] |
Website | www |
Dimensional Fund Advisors, L.P. (branded Dimensional abbreviated DFA [3] ) is a privately-owned investment firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. Dimensional was founded in Brooklyn [4] in 1981 by David Booth, Rex Sinquefield and Larry Klotz. The company has affiliates within 15 offices in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, and Japan. [5] Dimensional maintains additional U.S. offices in Charlotte, North Carolina and Santa Monica, California and has affiliate offices globally. The company is owned by its employees, board members and outside investors.
The company’s founders studied at the University of Chicago under Eugene Fama. Kenneth French is co-chair of the firm's investment research committee. [6] DFA's investment strategy is based on application of the efficient market hypothesis. [7] Dimensional was one of the earliest firms to offer passive investing and "runs the oldest small-cap index fund" in the United States. [8] However, DFA's versions of index funds have the flexibility to trade daily [9] and skew towards smaller company stocks and value stocks. Thus they operate differently from most index funds which rebalance on specific dates and are weighted by market capitalization. [10] This strategy results in regulators, such as the SEC, [11] and some analysts [12] [13] [14] describing the funds as actively managed. The company offers equity and fixed income mutual funds, Exchange-traded funds, separately managed accounts, and model portfolios.
In 2009, Dimensional acquired SmartNest, a retirement planning computer software company. [15] Researcher Robert C. Merton left SmartNest's board after the purchase and became a Resident Scientist at Dimensional. [16] [17] [18]
In November 2020, the company announced it was augmenting its strictly advisor-access [19] and institutional [20] only mutual fund business model by offering openly-accessed exchange-traded funds. [21] [22] [23] [24]
Passive management is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds.
An index fund is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that it can replicate the performance ("track") of a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index. Those rules may include tracking prominent indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average or implementation rules, such as tax-management, tracking error minimization, large block trading or patient/flexible trading strategies that allow for greater tracking error but lower market impact costs. Index funds may also have rules that screen for social and sustainable criteria.
The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 of the largest companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices and includes approximately 80% of the total market capitalization of U.S. public companies.
A mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe, and the open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK.
Fidelity Investments, commonly referred to as Fidelity, earlier as Fidelity Management & Research or FMR, is an American multinational financial services corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in 1946 and is one of the largest asset managers in the world with $4.3 trillion in assets under management, and, as of December 2022, their assets under administration amount to $10.3 trillion. Fidelity Investments operates a brokerage firm, manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of investment fund that is also an exchange-traded product, i.e., it is traded on stock exchanges. ETFs own financial assets such as stocks, bonds, currencies, debts, futures contracts, and/or commodities such as gold bars. The list of assets that each ETF owns, as well as their weightings, is posted on the website of the issuer daily, or quarterly in the case of active non-transparent ETFs. Many ETFs provide some level of diversification compared to owning an individual stock.
The Vanguard Group, Inc., is an American registered investment advisor based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with about $7.7 trillion in global assets under management, as of April 2023. It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the world after BlackRock's iShares. In addition to mutual funds and ETFs, Vanguard offers brokerage services, educational account services, financial planning, asset management, and trust services. Several mutual funds managed by Vanguard are ranked at the top of the list of US mutual funds by assets under management. Along with BlackRock and State Street, Vanguard is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers that play a dominant role in corporate America.
Franklin Resources, Inc. is an American multinational holding company that, together with its subsidiaries, is referred to as Franklin Templeton; it is a global investment firm founded in New York City in 1947 as Franklin Distributors, Inc. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BEN, in honor of Benjamin Franklin, for whom the company is named, and who was admired by founder Rupert Johnson Sr. In 1973, the company's headquarters moved from New York to San Mateo, California.
BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. It is the world's largest asset manager, with $9.42 trillion in assets as of June 30, 2023. Headquartered in New York City, Blackrock has 70 offices in 30 countries, and clients in 100 countries. BlackRock is the manager of the iShares group of exchange-traded funds, and along with The Vanguard Group and State Street, it is considered to be one of the Big Three index fund managers. Its Aladdin software keeps track of investment portfolios for many major financial institutions and its BlackRock Solutions division provides financial risk management services. As of 2023, BlackRock was ranked 229th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) is the investment management division of State Street Corporation and the world's fourth largest asset manager, with nearly $4.14 trillion (USD) in assets under management as of 31 December 2021.
Robert W. Baird & Co. is an American multinational independent investment firm and financial services company. It is the principal U.S. operating subsidiary of Baird, an international, employee-owned financial services firm providing investment banking, capital markets, private equity, wealth management, and asset management services to individuals, corporations, institutional investors, and municipalities.
TrimTabs Investment Research, Inc. is a leading independent institutional research firm focused on equity market liquidity based in Sausalito, California.
Highland Capital Management is an alternative investment management firm that manages hedge funds, structured investment vehicles and mutual funds. The firm invests in global public equities, as well as fixed income markets with a focus on leveraged loans, high yield bonds, and structured products.
In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures the performance of a stock market, or of a subset of a stock market. It helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance.
AdvisorShares Investments is a US-based investment management firm based in Bethesda, Maryland which offers actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) through the AdvisorShares Trust. AdvisorShares partners with third party financial advisers who already manage clients’ assets to package their investment strategy using exchange-traded funds. As part of promoting its funds it also provides educational support to help financial advisors and investors understand actively managed ETFs and their underlying investment strategies.
An exchange-traded product (ETP) is a regularly priced security which trades during the day on a national stock exchange. ETPs may embed derivatives but it is not a requirement that they do so – and the investment memorandum should be read with care to ensure that the pricing methodology and use of derivatives is explicitly stated. Typically, individual underlying securities, such as stocks and bonds, are not considered ETPs.
HDFC Securities Limited is a financial services intermediary and a subsidiary of HDFC Bank, a private sector bank in India. HDFC Securities was founded in year 2000 and is headquartered in Mumbai, with branches across major cities and towns in India.
Axis Direct is the flagship brand under Axis Securities Limited, a subsidiary of Axis Bank in India. Providing Demat and Trading services. Its main offices are in Mumbai. The company employs over 2,100 people.
CI Financial is the largest investment management firm by assets under management in Canada. Based in Toronto, Ontario, it offers investment management and wealth management services targeted to high net worth retail investors, as well as brokerage and trading services to portfolio managers and institutional investors. It is considered one of the Big Three investment management companies in Canada, along with Mackenzie Investments and Fiera Capital.
VanEck is an American investment management firm headquartered in New York City. The firm is primarily engaged in issuing exchange-traded fund (ETF) products although it also deals with mutual funds and separately managed accounts for institutional investors. It was a pioneer of investing in foreign growth stocks as well as gold investing.