Dimensional Fund Advisors, L.P. (branded Dimensional abbreviated DFA) is a private investment firm headquartered in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. Dimensional was founded in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1981 by David Booth, Rex Sinquefield and Larry Klotz. The company has affiliates within 13 offices in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, and Japan. Dimensional maintains U.S. offices in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

and

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

and has affiliate offices globally. The company is owned by its employees, board members and outside investors. The company’s founders studied at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

under Eugene Fama and Kenneth French. DFA's investment strategy is based on application of the efficient market hypothesis. Dimensional was one of the earliest firms to offer passive investing and "runs the oldest small-cap index fund" in the United States. However, DFA's versions of

index funds An index fund (also index tracker) is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that the fund can a specified basket of underlying investments.Reasonable Investor(s), Boston University Law Review, avai ...

skew towards smaller company stocks and

value stocks Value investing is an investment paradigm that involves buying securities that appear underpriced by some form of fundamental analysis. The various forms of value investing derive from the investment philosophy first taught by Benjamin Graham ...

, and thus operate differently from most index funds which are weighted by market capitalization. This strategy results in regulators, such as the SEC, and some analysts describing the funds as actively managed. The company offers equity and fixed income mutual funds and Exchange-traded funds. In 2009, Dimensional acquired SmartNest, a retirement planning computer software company. Researcher Robert C. Merton left SmartNest's board after the purchase and became a Resident Scientist at Dimensional. In November 2020, the company announced it was abandoning its strictly advisor-access only mutual fund business model by offering openly-accessed exchange-traded funds.

References

External links

Official siteFama/French ForumDavid Booth Interviews
{{Major asset management companies Investment management companies of the United States Financial services companies established in 1981 Companies based in Austin, Texas