The introduction to the new book I co-authored with Andrew Berkin, “Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing,” begins: “If a poll was taken asking investors to name the greatest investor of all time, it is safe to say that the vast majority would likely respond, ‘Warren Buffett.’

Thus, we could say that a major goal of investors the world over is to find Buffett’s ‘secret sauce.’ If we could identify it, we could invest like him—assuming we also had his ability to ignore the noise of the market and avoid the panicked selling that causes so many investors to incur the higher risk of stocks while ending up with lower, bond-like returns. This book is in part about the academic community’s search for that secret sauce—specifically the characteristics of stocks and other securities that both explain performance and provide premiums (above market returns). Such characteristics can also be called factors, which are simply properties or a set of properties common across a broad set of securities. Thus, a factor is a quantitative way of expressing a qualitative theme.”

Read the rest of the article on ETF.com.