Why Nvidia and Other AI Stocks Have Lost Their ‘Quality’ Status, December 2025, Wall Street Journal, James Macintosh. Link. ""Yet, all this effort might be beside the point, said Mamdouh Medhat, research director at Dimensional Fund Advisors. He argues that there’s no need to overcomplicate quality gauges: A strategy of just buying the most profitable stocks trading at lower valuations, on average beat combined measures with accruals, stability of earnings or other tricks."
Rational Reminder, Episode 384: "Mamdouh Medhat - A Profitability Retrospective, and Private Fund Performance,"November 2025. Episode link. Spotify link. Apple Podcasts link. YouTube link.
De forvalter over 5400 mia. kr. – sådan handler de i danske børsdramaer, October 2025, Børsen, Signe Duedahl Nørgaard. Link.
Why you should focus on these 15 most-profitable stocks in the S&P 500 right now, March 2025, MarketWatch/Dow Jones, Mark Hulbert. Link.
Dimensional promotes quant researcher and manager to director, January 2025, CityWire, by Ian Heath. Link. "Dimensional Fund Advisors has promoted Mamdouh Medhat to the role of research director. [...] His responsibilities at the US firm include quantitative research and systematic investment management."
2024
Wall Street Math Wizards Are Decoding Private-Market Returns, November 2024, Bloomberg, by Justina Lee. Link. "A recent study by money management firm Dimensional Fund Advisors found that while an average buyout fund beats the S&P 500 across its lifetime, it actually loses to an index of small-cap value shares—which some might say look more like a typical private equity portfolio."
Why profitability may be the greatest quality, February 2024, Op-Ed in Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE). Link. "Thinking simultaneously about what you pay (valuation) and what you expect to receive (profitability) is both intuitive and prudent. In addition, highly profitable companies tend to be large and command high valuations, while value stocks tend to be smaller and less profitable. The two strategies can therefore have little overlap in terms of their holdings, implying diversification benefits for investors that combine them in an asset allocation. Achieving such diversification benefits can be more difficult with a quality strategy. This is because the composite nature of quality scores can lead to unintended interactions and, ultimately, material overlap with the holdings of a value strategy. Instead of acting as a diversifier for value, quality can end up doubling down on it."
What does Thames Water’s valuation dip mean for UK pension funds?, January 2024, Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE), by Pamela Kokoszka. Link.
2023
Dimensional’s Medhat: Will value investing be ‘the comeback kid’ of 2024?, December 2023, Op-Ed in Portfolio Advisor. Link.
How truly systematic managers can help deliver better outcomes, November 2023, Op-Ed inFunds Europe. Link.
Should the advice market rethink the 60/40 portfolio approach?, International Advisor, by Fiona Nicolson. Link.
US asset manager expands Nordic fund range to seize "opportunity for significant growth," AMWatch, by Philip Madsen. Link.
Competing with Cash, August 2023, CityWire - New Model Advisor, by Nicola Blackburn. Link.
How Dimensional threads the needle between equity trading and market theory, July 2023, The Currency, by Sean Keyes. Link. “If you go back to your finance 101, the price of any security is the expected cash flows you will receive from holding the security discounted back to present value using some discount rate that reflects your expected return,” said Medhat. “So all else equal, the lower the price for the same expected cash flows means a higher expected return. And the higher the expected cash flows for the same price means a higher expected return. [...] [T]he lower-priced ones will tend to be smaller and deeper value. The ones with higher expected cash flows tend to be the ones with higher profitability and lower investment. This gives us the framework for the premiums that we pursue,” he added.
Should pension savers increase their risk to keep up with inflation?, June 2023, Financial Times, FT Adviser. Link.
Traditional investors are learning it’s tricky to be picky, March 2023, Financial Times, by Katie Martin. Link.
For some, this is all just too much faff for too little gain. “There’s an argument that stockpicking should work when the market is in turmoil. I don’t think there’s much evidence to support that,” said Mamdouh Medhat, a senior researcher and vice-president at Dimensional Fund Advisors. [...] Instead, Medhat sticks to his usual strategy: be diversified, don’t try to time the market and trust broad asset prices to shake off shocks. “Embrace the uncertainty,” he said. “If it’s unsatisfying to think of yourself as a passenger, think ‘I’m a passenger . . . in the most high-tech processing mechanism we’ve ever had. It’s not a horse and buggy, it’s a high-speed luxury train.’” A comfort, perhaps, to those who find it tricky to be picky.
Have the last three years in markets been as unusual as we think? March 2023, CityWire Selector, by Ian Heath. Link.
Trying to time the market is a losing game, March 2023, Op-Ed in Financial Times, FT Adviser. Link.
How to pursue a multifactor investment approach, February 2023, Financial Times, FT Adviser. Link.
When and why a Faang became a buy for a systematic value investor, February 2023, CityWire Selector, by Ian Heath.Link.
How multifactor strategies help to deliver better investment outcomes, February 2023, Funds Europe. Link.
The relation between corporate bonds and stocks, February 2023, Funds Europe. Link.
Outlook 2023: Mamdouh Medhat (Dimensional Fund Advisors), January 2023, Financial Investigator. Link.
2022
Market rally delivers hard lessons for fund managers, August 2022, Financial Times, by Katie Martin. Link.
“You can easily be caught up in short-term movements,” said Mamdouh Medhat, a senior researcher at Dimensional Fund Advisors, the quant house founded in the 1980s. “It’s like a ping-pong match and commentating on every hit of the ball.” Boring as it sounds, sticking with markets for the long term is still almost always the best tactic. “It’s very, very difficult to beat the market by trying to outguess it. People will make the right calls sometimes out of pure luck,” Medhat says with the calming tone of a therapist. “Be stoic . . . If you are broadly diversified, you are getting the only free lunch in finance,” he says.
Dane turns research into higher returns at quant pioneer, July 2022, profile piece in AM Watch. Link.
Simplicity wins: How most conventional asset classes have outpaced inflation, June 2022, LAPF Investments. Link.
Why investors shouldn't fear recessions, May 2022, Trustnet. Link.
2021
Economic growth for this cycle has already peaked, says Schroders, December 2021, Trustnet. Link.
Deflating Your Inflation Fears, October 2021, Wall Street Journal, Intelligent Investor (uses data from the paper "US Inflation and Global Asset Returns"), by Jason Zweig . Link.
Economic growth for this cycle has already peaked, says Schroders, December 2021, Trustnet. Link.
Deflating Your Inflation Fears, October 2021, Wall Street Journal, Intelligent Investor (uses data from the paper "US Inflation and Global Asset Returns"), by Jason Zweig . Link.