Dimensional Fund Advisors (abbreviated as DFA or Dimensional) is an investment firm headquartered in Austin, TX with regional offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Santa Monica, Sydney, and Vancouver. The company was founded in 1981 by David G. Booth and Rex Sinquefield, both graduates of the University of Chicago's School of Business (now known as the Booth School of Business). The company benchmarks the performance of its large-cap equity portfolio against the S&P 500 Index, Consumer Price Index, MSCI EAFE Index and the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Index.
DFA's objective is to "deliver the performance of capital markets and increase returns through state-of-the-art portfolio design and trading." The company's board of directors includes Myron Scholes who won the Nobel Prize for economics. The late Merton Miller, another Nobel laureate, was also on the board of directors, as was Robert C. Merton before he became the company's Resident Scientist. Other directors include leading economists such as George Constantinides, Eugene Fama, Kenneth French, and Roger G. Ibbotson. DFA hosts a forum where Eugene Fama and Kenneth French express their opinions on topics related to finance and current events. This website is called the Fama/French Forum.
The company rejects stock-picking and market timing and utilizes enhanced indexing to design portfolios and limit trading costs. Their investment philosophy emphasizes five "dimensions" that determine investment results—hence the firm's name. For example, one of their stock funds might overweight small-cap stocks and value stocks, to emphasize the dimensions of "size" and "price."
Dimensional has more than $206.35 billion under management as of 31 December 2010 (2010 -12-31). Its mutual funds are not offered directly to the public, but only to institutional investors and through approved fee-only Registered Investment Advisors. The company is owned by its employees, board members and a number of outside investors, which as of 2005 was reported to include Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
On November 6, 2008, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business announced a $300 million dollar gift from David Booth in the form of cash and the income stream from DFA stock. The school was renamed the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
On December 2, 2009, Dimensional announced the acquisition of SmartNest, a retirement planning computer software company. The technology offered by SmartNest was developed by Robert C. Merton, who left the company's board after the purchase to become Resident Scientist.
Famous quotes containing the words dimensional, fund and/or advisors:
“I don’t see black people as victims even though we are exploited. Victims are flat, one- dimensional characters, someone rolled over by a steamroller so you have a cardboard person. We are far more resilient and more rounded than that. I will go on showing there’s more to us than our being victimized. Victims are dead.”
—Kristin Hunter (b. 1931)
“I am advised that there is an unexpended balance of about $45,000 of the fund appropriated for the relief of the sufferers by flood upon the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and I recommend that authority be given to use this fund to meet the most urgent necessities of the poorer people in Oklahoma.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Whoever gives advice to the sick gains a sense of superiority over them, no matter whether his advice is accepted or rejected. That is why sick people who are sensitive and proud hate their advisors even more than their illnesses.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)