Investment professionals have long relied on factor investing—strategies built around characteristics like value, momentum, and quality—to generate returns beyond the broad market. But predicting which factors will perform well in the future has remained challenging. Liyao Wang and Ming Zeng, authors of the December 2025 study “ Factor MAX and Predictable Factor Returns ,” introduced an intriguing predictor: factor MAX, which captures extreme daily returns within a month. What the Researchers Examined Research findings (see for example here and here ) have found that extreme returns have been found to be a source of useful information at the individual stock level. The factor MAX study investigated whether the maximum daily return a factor experiences within a month contains valuable information about that factor’s future performance.…