Expected Returns: An Investor's Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards

Expected Returns is a one-stop reference that gives investors a comprehensive toolkit for harvesting market rewards from a wide range of investments. Written by an experienced portfolio manager, scholar, strategist, investment advisor and hedge fund trader, this book challenges investors to broaden their minds from a too-narrow asset class perspective and excessive focus on historical performance. Coverage includes major asset classes (stocks, bonds, alternatives), investment strategies (value, carry, momentum, volatility) and the effects of underlying risk factors (growth, inflation, illiquidity, tail risks). Judging expected returns requires balancing historical returns with both theoretical considerations and current market conditions. Expected Returns summarizes the state of knowledge on all of these topics, providing extensive empirical evidence, surveys of risk-based and behavioral theories, and practical insights.

“This is the best book on active management ever written – and it achieves that status without mentioning a single stock or bond by name. Anyone who performs the rigorous analysis Ilmanen describes – admittedly a neat trick, since the world’s most sophisticated investors struggle to do it successfully – will beat the market.”
―Laurence B. Siegel, Former Director of Research, The Ford Foundation

“Antti Ilmanen shows the way forward for the investment management profession in this remarkable book. In a comprehensive and impressive way, he combines financial theory, historical performance data and forward-looking indicators, into a consistent framework for assessing expected returns and risk. His approach is both scientific and practical, based on decades of studies and his own trading experience. With a touch of personal wisdom and humility, Ilmanen’s book is a fascinating and educational journey into the future of investment management.”
―Knut N. Kjaer, Founding CEO of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund/NBIM and former president of RiskMetrics Group

“Ilmanen’s wonderful book manages to be exquisitely readable while covering just about every aspect of the investment process. Filled with many, many fresh and useful insights. This volume deserves to be read and then kept close at hand – because it is sure to be needed again and again.”
―Martin L. Leibowitz, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley, and former CIO, TIAA-CREF

Antti Ilmanenis a Principal at AQR Capital Management, a leading global investment-management firm. Since starting as a central bank portfolio manager in Finland in 1986, Antti has worn many hats to bridge academic finance and practitioner investing. Having earned a finance PhD in 1994 from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, he spent a decade at Salomon Brothers/Citigroup as a bond researcher, strategist, managing director and a trader. Before joining Brevan Howard in 2004, Antti had published extensively in finance and investment journals and had received a Graham & Dodd scroll and the Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy award for his articles. Over the years, Antti has advised many institutional investors, most regularly Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global on its long-run investment strategy.