Clifford Scott Asness is the co-founder, managing principal, and chief investment officer of AQR Capital Management, one of the world's largest quantitative investment firms managing approximately $107 billion in assets.
Asness earned his PhD in finance from the University of Chicago under Nobel laureate Eugene Fama, studying momentum and value factors. He briefly led the quantitative research group at Goldman Sachs Asset Management before co-founding AQR in 1998 with a group of colleagues.
AQR is known for its systematic, factor-based approach to investing, applying academic research to real-world portfolio construction. After several challenging years (AQR's managed futures and value strategies suffered significant drawdowns in 2018-2020), the firm has staged a major recovery since 2023 as value and trend-following strategies returned to favour. Asness is known for his prolific academic writing and sharp, often humorous commentary on Twitter/X.
SEC filings, AQR public fund reports, Institutional Investor, Bloomberg
| Year | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Return | +14% | +13% | +12% |