After more than a decade where US technology stocks dominated global markets, late 2025 and early 2026 saw signs of a rotation. Less glamorous sectors like industrials and consumer staples, companies often considered ‘boring’ began to outperform the high-flying tech names that had captured investors’ attention for years. We revisit the work of Bob Haugen, a pioneering quantitative investor and academic who spent much of his career challenging a core assumption in finance: that higher risk should lead to higher returns. Haugen argued the opposite - that lower-volatility stocks often outperform higher-volatility stocks over time.

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