A case for supporting finance and investment research through the Hillsdale Investment Management – CFA Society Toronto Research Award

Information is abundant in today’s markets; insight is scarce. Being able to spot a real signal and act on it in a timely manner is what separates useful research from noise. Bridging the gap between rigorous research and daily portfolio management decisions in service to practitioners and the industry is the core purpose of the Hillsdale Investment Management – CFA Society Toronto Research Award, which is now accepting submissions for 2025.

“Over the past 14 years, the Award has honoured many outstanding papers that remain relevant to us today.  Past award winners have been published 10 times, cited over 450 times, and downloaded over 5000 times from SSRN," stated Chris Guthrie, CFA, President and CEO of Hillsdale Investment Management, sponsor of the award program.

Why Practitioner-Relevant Research Matters

Academic ideas have a long history of reshaping practice. Harry Markowitz’s Efficient Frontier, Bill Sharpe’s CAPM, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French’s Style factors and Edward Qian’s Risk Parity framework all began as journal arguments and now sit inside portfolio guidelines, ETF rulebooks, and risk dashboards worldwide.

Yet scholarship only changes behaviour when it solves a concrete problem and arrives in a form investors can apply. Market context makes that gap wider. A factor model that works in one market or region can falter elsewhere because of a unique mix of industries, regulations, and investor behaviours. That is why competitions that reward practitioner-friendly, market-specific research help ideas travel faster and land harder.

What “Practitioner-Relevant Research” Looks Like in Practice

• Navigating Canada’s Factor Zoo (2024)

  A six-factor model built on three decades of data of Canadian equity returns, giving portfolio managers a clear, evidence-based shortlist for factor investing. Using CFMRC-TSX and COMPUSTAT files for July 1991 – December 2022, the authors measured 17 widely cited style factors across 11 academic frameworks and ran redundancy, spanning, and anomaly-pricing tests. Classic HML and UMD signals added little once profitability, investment, and mispricing variables were included. The data pointed to six variables (market, size, monthly-updated value, return-on-equity, expected growth, and post-earnings-announcement drift) that explained Canadian returns more consistently than any legacy model. For practitioners, that result trims the “factor zoo” to a manageable toolkit for screening, attribution, and product design, and clarifies where global multifactor products may be mis-aligned with local risk premia.
  
  

• Currency Hedging and Tracking Error (2023)

  Evidence that actively hedging foreign-exchange exposure with currency forwards can lift international-equity fund performance, giving managers evidence-based guidance on when FX hedging pays. The study matched 55,000 forward contracts to 1,279 U.S.-registered international-equity funds (2004-2019) and sorted users into “exposure managers,” “occasional users,” and “non-users.” Systematic hedgers cut benchmark-relative volatility by about one percentage point and outperformed unhedged peers by roughly 120 bps a year, benefits that were largest during FX-volatile quarters. Forward books tilted toward currencies with favourable carry and momentum profiles, indicating that a disciplined overlay can function both as a risk-control and a modest return engine. Counter-factual tests suggested non-users left 40-60 bps of annual performance on the table. The paper therefore supplies CIOs with quantitative thresholds for when the cost of forwards is likely to be rewarded and a template for linking hedge ratios to currency-factor signals.

  
  

• Complex Instrument Allowance at Mutual Funds (2020)
  Evidence that letting mutual funds use leverage, derivatives, and other complex instruments erodes returns and increases downside risk, signalling to fund boards and regulators that fewer restrictions can hurt investors. Analysing SEC N-SAR filings for 4,793 U.S. domestic-equity funds (2000-2015), the authors built an “allowance score” for leverage, derivatives, and illiquid-asset permissions, then linked those permissions to daily performance and risk. Funds with the broadest latitude under-performed more constrained peers by 1.3 percentage points of four-factor alpha a year and carried higher market beta and downside semivariance, particularly in bear markets. Derivative authorisations showed the strongest negative relation to risk-adjusted returns, while better board oversight and larger fund size mitigated the drag. The findings give trustees and regulators a data-backed caution: expanding a fund’s toolbox without commensurate monitoring can lead to higher volatility and lower investor welfare.

(See all past winning research papers)

A Global Call for Canada-Focused Insight

Any academic or practitioner, anywhere in the world, can enter the Hillsdale Investment Management – CFA Society Toronto Research Award by submitting original, unpublished work that sheds light on Canada’s capital markets (including public and private markets governance, sustainability, market microstructure, etc.) and helps investors allocate capital more intelligently.

How the Award Closes the Gap

CFA Charterholder Judges

Every submission is judged by a panel of CFA Charterholders. This means only research with clear, test-ready insights and practical relevance survive the review process.

$10,000 (CAD) Prize

The Award helps empower winning researchers to continue ground-breaking research through flexible funding they can redirect to additional research funding, conference travel, or their next projects, without strings attached.

High Visibility with Investment Professionals

The winning paper and authors gain visibility, citation momentum, speeds diffusion from paper to practice among 11,500+ CFA Charterholders and a global CFA community. The winning paper is unveiled at CFA Society Toronto’s Annual Investment Dinner, promoted through Society press channels, and published in The Analyst - CFA Society Toronto’s quarterly magazine.

Why This Matters to the Wider Investment Community

• Sharper Tools: Curated awards surface updated factor libraries, hedging templates, or governance checklists that teams can A/B test in live portfolios.
• Diversity of Thought: A worldwide author pool interrogating a mid-size market reduces home-bias blind spots and fuels cross-border ideas.
• Faster diffusion: Because the award sits inside a professional body, findings reach practitioners directly, compressing the timeline from discovery to implementation.
  
  

Key Details for 2025 Hillsdale Investment Management – CFA Society Toronto Research Awards

Submission deadline: 27 June 2025, 23:59 ET
Eligibility: Open to global researchers; the research must pertain to Canadian capital markets.
Participants: Academics (students and professors) and practitioners are eligible to submit their research.
Paper Requirements: Submissions must include a 1,500 to 2,000-word Executive Summary and a full Research Paper that is unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.
How to Submit: Submission entries can be online at https://www.cfatoronto.ca/awards-scholarships/ResearchAward

Full guidelines and judging criteria are posted on the submission web page.

“Winning the 2023 Hillsdale Investment Management - CFA Society Toronto Research Award with my co-author Steven Riddiough has been a transformative milestone, recognizing the impact our work has on industry practices and significantly enhancing the visibility of our research on a global scale,” says Wei Opie, 2023 Hillsdale Investment Management Research Award Winner. “This achievement is celebrated at my university, which places a strong emphasis on innovative research that serves our communities.”

Great research doesn’t just fill journals; it enhances how capital is allocated. If your latest project can help investors navigate Canadian markets, the Hillsdale Investment Management – CFA Society Toronto Research Award offers a ready-made bridge from idea to impact.

About the Author

Fred Pinto, CFA, ICD.D, CEO, CFA Society Toronto

Fred Pinto is CEO of CFA Society Toronto, the largest Society of investment and finance industry professionals, affiliated with CFA Institute, with over 11,500 members.  In close partnership with the Board of Directors, Fred is responsible for CFA Society Toronto’s overall direction and in implementing the strategic plan.  Core to this mandate is delivering outstanding member value, promoting high ethical standards in the investment industry and increasing the visibility of the role of investment and financial industry professionals across multiple stakeholder groups. He sits on the Board of Directors of CFA Society Toronto. Fred brings over 25 years of leadership experience in the Asset and Wealth Management industry and also sits on other Boards and Advisory Councils.

Fred holds a BA (Honours) from the University of Toronto, an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University and received his ICD.D designation.