Three reads before you rotate into a winner.
01
The leaderboard is not a forecast. Last year's top factor stays on top about as often as a coin lands the same way twice. Rank by trailing return and you are not buying a trend. You are grabbing the baton mid handoff.
02
The blend harvests what the chase pays for. Hold all five equal weight and the rebalance quietly trims last year's runner into this year's laggard. Same factors, no timing call, and it finished fourteen points of compounding ahead.
03
If you must tilt, tilt on something slower. A factor that is cheap against its own history has an edge. A factor that just ran does not. It has a crowd. Valuation spreads age slowly. Last year's return is already spent.
The quilt is built to humble anyone who thinks they can read it. All five tiles are worth owning. Owning every one of them is the only timing call that keeps working.