Jochim Lauterbach won the "DAI Hochschulpreis 2013" offered by the "Deutsches Aktieninstitut e.V." for his master's thesis "Alternative Indexation for the German Stock Market". The price was awarded by the members of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Deutsches Aktieninstitut and was handed over at the annual reception of the DAI on May 22nd, 2014, where Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann gave a speech about the macroeconomic relevance of stock markets.

The thesis was advised by Maximilian Overkott and focuses on various alternative indexation methods - equal weighted portfolio, various fundamental weighted portfolios, minimum variance portfolio, maximum sharpe ratio portfolio, equally weighted risk contributions portfolio and most diversified portfolio - and compares its performances for the period from 1999 to 2012 to the market portfolio as a benchmark. As universe of stocks, all companies listed in the German CDAX were used. While no significant outperformance of the alternatives could be found over the long run, many of the alternative indices showed a significantly lower volatility and a significantly higher return to risk ratio (Sharpe ratio) compared to the benchmark portfolio. Other objects of investigation were the influence of portfolio size, rebalancing frequencies, bull and bear markets, as well as the drivers of the portfolio returns.

The press release can be found here.