August 7, 2020 - Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/3/20 through 8/7/20. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to your investing needs. Subscribers: To receive these weekly digests via email, click here to sign up for our mailing list.
August 7, 2020 - Mutual/Hedge Funds
Is the nominal incentive fee charge by hedge funds (typically 20% of profits exceeding a previous high-water mark) representative of the actual aggregate incentive fee paid by fund investors? In the July 2020 revision of their paper entitled “The Performance of Hedge Fund Performance Fees”, Itzhak Ben-David, Justin Birru and Andrea Rossi (1) quantify the… Keep Reading
August 6, 2020 - Individual Investing, Investing Expertise
Can individual investors make a living by day trading? In the June 2020 update of their paper entitled “Day Trading for a Living?”, Fernando Chague, Rodrigo De-Losso and Bruno Giovannetti analyze performances of all Brazilian retail investors who begin trading futures on the main Brazilian stock index during 2013 through 2015 and persist in this… Keep Reading
August 5, 2020 - Strategic Allocation, Volatility Effects
How should investors evaluate the effectiveness of a safe haven asset? In their July 2020 paper entitled “A Safe Haven Index”, Dirk Baur and Thomas Dimpfl devise and apply a safe haven index (SHI) to evaluate over 20 individual potential safe haven assets. SHI consists of seven equal-weighted assets: gold, Swiss franc, Japanese yen, 2-year,… Keep Reading
August 4, 2020 - Investing Expertise
Is the WisdomTree approach to exchange-traded fund (ETF) cost efficiency and performance potential (Modern Alpha) attractive? To investigate, we compare performance statistics of six WisdomTree ETFs, all currently available, to those of “easy substitute” (widely used and very liquid) benchmark ETFs, as follows: WisdomTree U.S. Total Dividend Fund (DTD), with SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) as… Keep Reading
August 3, 2020 - Bonds, Economic Indicators, Equity Premium
Is the level, or changes in the level, of Federal Reserve (Fed) holdings of U.S. Treasuries (bills, notes, bonds and TIPS, measured weekly as of Wednesday) an indicator of future stock market and/or Treasuries returns? To investigate, we take dividend-adjusted SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) and iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT) as tradable proxies for the U.S…. Keep Reading
July 31, 2020 - Calendar Effects, Momentum Investing, Strategic Allocation
We have updated monthly allocations and performance data for the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) and the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS). We have also updated performance data for the Combined Value-Momentum Strategy. We have updated the Trading Calendar to incorporate data for July 2020.
July 31, 2020 - Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/27/20 through 7/31/20. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to your investing needs. Subscribers: To receive these weekly digests via email, click here to sign up for our mailing list.
July 31, 2020 - Momentum Investing, Strategic Allocation
The home page, Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) and Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) now show preliminary positions for August 2020. The top three SACEMS ETFs are unlikely to change by the close, but the order may change. SACEVS allocations are currently sensitive to yields and S&P 500 Index level, so… Keep Reading
July 31, 2020 - Momentum Investing, Strategic Allocation
Do alternative “Cash” (deemed risk-free) instruments materially affect performance of the “Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy” (SACEMS)? Changing the proxy for Cash can affect how often the model selects Cash, as well as the return on Cash when selected. To investigate, we test separately each of the following yield and exchange-traded funds (ETF) as the… Keep Reading
