Calendar Effects

A subscriber asked: “Some pundits have noted that U.S. stocks have greatly outperformed foreign stocks in recent years. What does the performance of U.S. stocks vs. foreign stocks over the last N years say about future performance?” To investigate, we use the S&P 500 Index (SP500) as a proxy for the U.S. stock market and the ACWI ex USA Index as a proxy for the rest-of-world (ROW) equity market. We consider three ways to relate U.S. and ROW equity returns:

1. Lead-lag analysis between U.S. and ROW annual returns to see whether there is some cycle in the relationship.
2. Multi-year correlations between U.S. and next-period ROW returns, with periods ranging from one to five years.
3. Sequences of end-of-year high water marks for U.S. and ROW equity markets.

For the first two analyses, we relate the U.S. stock market to itself as a control (to assess whether ROW market behavior is distinct). Using end-of-year levels of the S&P 500 Index and the ACWI ex USA Index during 1987 (limited by the latter) through 2019, we find that: Keep Reading

The Trading Calendar presents cumulative return visualizations for the S&P 500 Index across the calendar year and across each calendar month. Three alternative perspectives on U.S. stock market performance by calendar month are: (1) percentage of positive returns; (2) ratio of average return to standard deviation of returns; and, (3) distribution of returns. Using monthly returns for the S&P 500 Index during January 1928 through December 2019 (92 observations per month), we find that: Keep Reading

Are some calendar months more likely to exhibit stock market continuation or reversal than others, perhaps due to seasonal or fund reporting effects? In other words, is intrinsic (times series or absolute) momentum an artifact of some months or all months? To investigate, we relate U.S. stock index returns for each calendar month to those for the preceding 3, 6 and 12 months. Using monthly closes of the S&P 500 Index since December 1927 and the Russell 2000 Index since September 1987, both through January 2020, we find that: Keep Reading

Has 24-hour trading of equity index futures created a reliable pattern in hour-by-hour returns? In their February 2020 preliminary paper entitled “The Overnight Drift”, Nina Boyarchenko, Lars Larsen and Paul Whelan study round-the-clock U.S. stock market performance decomposing S&P 500 Index futures returns by hour, with focus on dealer inventory management. Using 24-hour high-frequency trades and quotes for S&P 500 futures contracts during January 1998 through December 2018, they find that: Keep Reading

As implied in “Mirror Image Seasonality for Stocks and Treasuries?”, are bonds better than stocks during the “Sell-in-May” months of May through October? Are behaviors of government, corporate investment grade and corporate high-yield bonds over this interval similar? To investigate, we test seasonal behaviors of:

SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury (VFITX)
Fidelity Investment Grade Bond (FBNDX)
Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Bond (VWEHX)

Using dividend-adjusted monthly prices for these funds during January 1993 (limited by SPY) through January 2020, we find that: Keep Reading

How does execution delay affect the performance of the Best Value and Weighted versions of the “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS)? These strategies each month allocate funds to the following asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF) according to valuations of term, credit and equity risk premiums, or to cash if no premiums are undervalued:

3-month Treasury bills (Cash)
iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)

To investigate, we compare 22 variations of each strategy with execution days ranging from end-of-month (EOM) per the baseline strategy to 21 trading days after EOM (EOM+21). For example, an EOM+5 variation computes allocations based on EOM but delays execution until the close five trading days after EOM. We include a benchmark that each month allocates 60% to SPY and 40% to TLT (60-40) to see whether variations are unique to SACEVS. We focus on gross compound annual growth rate (CAGR), maximum drawdown (MaxDD) and annual Sharpe ratio as key performance statistics. Using daily dividend-adjusted closes for the above ETFs from the end of July 2002 through January 2020, we find that:

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Are there any seasonal, technical or fundamental strategies that reliably time the U.S. stock market as proxied by the S&P 500 Total Return Index? In the February 2018 version of his paper entitled “Investing In The S&P 500 Index: Can Anything Beat the Buy-And-Hold Strategy?”, Hubert Dichtl compares excess returns (relative to the U.S. Treasury bill [T-bill] yield) and Sharpe ratios for investment strategies that time the S&P 500 Index monthly based on each of:

• 4,096 seasonality strategies.
• 24 technical strategies (10 slow-fast moving average crossover rules; 8 intrinsic [time series or absolute] momentum rules; and, 6 on-balance volume rules).
• 18 fundamental variable strategies based on a rolling 180-month regression, with 1950-1965 used to generate initial predictions.

In all cases, when not in stocks, the strategies hold T-bills as a proxy for cash. His main out-of-sample test period is 1966-2014, with emphasis on a “crisis” subsample of 2000-2014. He includes extended tests on seasonality and some technical strategies using 1931-2014. He assumes constant stock index-cash switching frictions of 0.25%. He addresses data snooping bias from testing multiple strategies on the same sample by applying Hansen’s test for superior predictive ability. Using monthly S&P 500 Index levels/total returns and U.S. Treasury bill yields since 1931 and values of fundamental variables since January 1950, all through December 2014, he finds that:

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Does the market react most strongly to the earliest quarterly earnings announcements? In their October 2019 paper entitled “Calendar Rotations: A New Approach for Studying the Impact of Timing using Earnings Announcements”, Suzie Noh, Eric So and Rodrigo Verdi study effects of the relative order of U.S. firm quarterly earnings announcements, which vary systematically for some firms according to the day of the week of the first day of a month. Specifically, they qualify firms by identifying those firms that exhibit systematic earnings announcement schedules (such as Friday of the fourth week after quarter ends, sometimes set in firm bylaws) for at least four consecutive same fiscal quarters. They then for each firm each fiscal quarter:

• Calculate EA Order, ranking of earnings announcement date divided by number of firms with the same fiscal quarter-end.
• Compute change in EA Order compared to the same fiscal quarter last year, indicating a calendar acceleration or delay in announcement. Positive (negative) change in EA Order indicates delay (acceleration)
• Examine effects of change in EA Order on media coverage (number of articles), stock trading volume and stock return from one trading day before to one trading day after earnings announcement.

Using sample of 76,622 firm-quarters during 2004 through 2017, they find that: Keep Reading

“Stock Market and the National Election Cycle” examines the behavior of the U.S. stock market across the U.S. presidential term cycle (years 1, 2, 3 or 4) starting in 1950. Is a longer sample informative? To extend the sample period, we use the long run S&P Composite Index of Robert Shiller. The value of this index each month is the average daily level during that month. It is therefore “blurry” compared to a month-end series, but the blurriness is not of much concern over a 4-year cycle. Using monthly S&P Composite Index levels from the end of December 1872 through August 2019 (about 37.5 presidential terms), we find that:

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A subscriber commented and asked:

“Some have suggested that the end-of-the-month effect benefits monthly simple moving average strategies that trade on the last day of the month. Is there an optimal day of the month for long-term SMA calculation and does the end-of-the-month effect explain the optimal day?”

To investigate, we compare 21 variations of a 10-month simple moving average (SMA10) timing strategy generated by shifting the monthly return calculation cycle relative to trading days from the end of the month (EOM). Specifically, the 21 variations represent calculation cycles ranging from 10 trading days before EOM (EOM-10) to 10 trading days after EOM (EOM+10). We apply the strategy to the S&P 500 Index as a proxy for the U.S. stock market. The strategy holds the S&P 500 Index (cash) whenever the index is above (below) its SMA10 as of the most recent monthly calculation. Using daily S&P 500 Index closes and 3-month Treasury bill (T-bill) yields as the return on cash during January 1990 through mid-June 2019, we find that: Keep Reading