2023 Report to Readers

Each year, we report to our readers, authors, and other stakeholders on activities of the Journal the prior year.

The Financial Analysts Journal aims to be the leading practitioner journal in the investment management community. Our Journal metrics indicate that publication of an article in the Journal indeed draws considerable attention from the profession:

• Articles were downloaded/viewed a total of 392,000 times in 2023.¹

• The average number of citations received by published articles within a five-year window was 4.00 (5-Year Impact Factor), having increased from 3.27 in the prior year.² The Impact Factor increased from 2.35 in 2021 to 2.80 in 2022.

Since 1945, the Journal has been publishing rigorous and peer-reviewed research relevant in the practice of investment management. Volume 79 in 2023 included a total of 28 articles that offered professional learning (PL) credits to CFA Institute members.³ Roughly 43% of authors were affiliated with institutions in the Americas, 44% with European institutions, and 13% with Asia-Pacific institutions. This distribution is broadly consistent with the global membership of CFA Institute and hence the global nature of the Journal’s audience.⁴

In past reports, we have provided information useful to prospective authors, such as statistics on decision times and acceptance rates. These statistics are available online at Taylor & Francis’s website,⁵ so here we only provide some summary information for 2023:

• The Journal received 391 submissions.

• The breakdown for editorial decisions was 71% desk-rejected, 21% rejected after review (nearly all in the first decision), and 8% accepted (the majority after one or two rounds).

• For articles that were reviewed, 83% of submissions received the first decision within 90 calendar days and 40% within 60 calendar days.

• For acceptances, 3% of articles went from initial submission to final acceptance within 60 days, 6% within 90 days, and 13% within 120 days.

For emphasis, articles that are not desk-rejected have a high likelihood of acceptance; the majority of reviewed submissions take less than three months to initial decision, and many articles are accepted within four months of initial submission. These numbers indicate a very efficient editorial process.

The Financial Analysts Journal is managed by a small editorial team with the support of CFA Institute staff and the expert advice of a large pool of reviewers. Let’s acknowledge those who bring the Journal to you, from first submission to citable article: Executive Editor William Goetzmann; co-editors Nicole Boyson and Daniel Giamouridis; 266 reviewers⁶; our Advisory Council and Editorial Board; a team of designers, typesetters, and production managers; and of course, our authors/researchers from around the world. Special thanks to Maryann Dupes, research senior manager at CFA Institute, for her tireless support of the Journal over the years.

Some readers may be interested in learning what the most popular pieces were in 2023. The top 10 Most Read is below (these are the most-read articles published within the last 12 months at time of writing this report). The top three articles (noted with an asterisk) also appear in the Most Read list of all time,⁷ which suggests that the Journal is publishing content topical to practice.

• Stocks for the Long Run? Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No*

• Earning Alpha by Avoiding the Index Rebalancing Crowd*

• Investing in Deflation, Inflation, and Stagflation Regimes*

• Applying Economics—Not Gut Feel—to ESG

• Direct Lending Returns

• Personalized Multiple Account Portfolio Optimization

• Time-Series Predictability for Sector Investing

• Is Sector Neutrality in Factor Investing a Mistake?

• Long-Term Shareholder Returns: Evidence from 64,000 Global Stocks

• Private Shareholder Engagements on Material ESG Issues

Thank you to all our stakeholders—members, investment professionals, authors, and others—for your continued support. Should you have any comments or suggestions about your Journal, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Metrics are available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=journalMetrics&journalCode=ufaj20.

2 The 5-Year Impact Factor does not include 2023.

3 To learn more about PL credits for CFA Institute members, refer to https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/membership/professional-development/pl.

4 As of the time of writing, there were nearly 200,000 CFA Institute members globally: 21% Asia-Pacific, 56% Americas, and 23% Europe, Africa, and Middle East.

5 See www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=journalMetrics&journalCode=ufaj20.

6 Find “Our Thanks to Reviewers” at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0015198X.2023.2271371.

7 https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=ufaj20.