Unlocking the secrets of fundamental indexes: size effect or value effect? Evidence from emerging stock markets

Abstract

Despite the abundant successful evidence of fundamental indexation in recent international literature, it is argued that the performance of fundamental indexes is primarily attributed to their inherent value bias or avoidance of large caps. To clarify whether the merits of fundamental indexation represent reward to priced value and size risk factors, performance attribution analysis is conducted on the fundamental indexes in emerging stock markets based on the Fama and French (1993) 3-factor model. The results of this study indicate that with the exception of the sales indexes, the majority of the fundamental-weighted indexes have significant exposures to the size and value risks in emerging stock markets, and earn significantly negative abnormal returns after the size and value risks are controlled for. It is also found that although fundamental-weighted indexes accumulate positive residuals during the crash of the dot.com bubble in 2000 and the global financial crisis in 2008, they also experience severe drawdown during these periods. This observation suggests that fundamental indexation might have significant exposures to known risk factors in emerging markets during turbulent times.