Schwab and Fidelity beat Goldman Sachs to the punch on long/short fund sorcery for RIAs, but the vampire squid is back with its own offer — a possible one-up

The long-short ‘big four’

• AQR manages $311 billion, according to its Form ADV, including at least $15 billion managed through its popular long short SMA, AQR Flex, which it launched in 2021. 
• By year-end 2025, AQR managed $69 billion of long-short assets.
• Quantinno also launched its first long-short SMA for advisors, DEALS, in 2021. The fund manages over $10 billion, or 16% of the $60.9 billion under the company’s management.
• Aperio does not break out the value of its individual holdings, but it manages $152 billion overall, according to its Form ADV; an increase of 389.7% from $39 billion, in the last 30 months. It has attracted over $15 billion of net-new-assets in the year-to-date, approximately $7.5 billion of which are held in long-short SMAs, according to public data.
• Parametric manages over $684 billion, according to its Form ADV2. It does not break out the value of long-short accounts under its management.
• Other leading vendors include BlackRock-owned Aperio, and Morgan Stanley-owned Parametric.