Despite our model's robustness in predicting returns based on historical trends, it could not anticipate the deposit flight from many regional banks. This underscores an enduring issue for quantitative investors: the shifting sands of market dynamics can render even historically dependable trends useless in the face of novel data.
Regardless, over the long run, basing investment decisions on quantifiable criteria with a long track record of demonstrated success seems prudent to us. A strategy that buys cheap, high-quality banks with conservatively managed loan and asset books can be expected to deliver excess returns in the majority of market environments. We can’t say definitively that this basket of banks will outperform in all future banking crises. However, we believe a portfolio of cheap, high-quality, conservatively managed banks should provide an adequate margin of safety to weather the crisis du jour.