Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/27/26 through 7/31/26. 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.
Recent Investing Research
Fundamental Valuation, Momentum Investing, Strategic Allocation
Preliminary SACEMS and SACEVS Allocation Updates
The home page, Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) and Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) now show preliminary positions for August 2026. SACEMS rankings probably will not change by the close. SACEVS allocations are unlikely to change by the close.
Bonds, Equity Premium
Evaluating Country Investment Risk
How should global investors assess country sovereign bond and equity risks? In his July 2026 paper entitled “Country Risk: Determinants, Measures and Implications – The 2026 Edition”, Aswath Damodaran examines country risk from multiple perspectives. To estimate a country risk premium, he considers direct and indirect measures of country government bond risk and country equity… Keep Reading
Size Effect
Do Equal Weight ETFs Beat Cap Weight Counterparts?
“Stock Size and Excess Stock Portfolio Growth” finds that an equal-weighted portfolio of the (each day) 1,000 largest U.S. stocks beats its market capitalization-weighted counterpart by about 2% per year. However, the underlying research does not account for portfolio rebalancing costs and may not be representative of other stock universes. Do exchange-traded funds (ETF) that… Keep Reading
Economic Indicators
U.S. Business Applications and Stock Market Returns
Do U.S. business applications, based on Employer Identification Number (EIN) applications associated with new businesses, predict future economic activity and therefore stock market returns? To investigate, we relate changes in both seasonally adjusted (SA) and non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) business applications to S&P 500 Index (SP500) returns at monthly and annual frequencies. In case the relationships… Keep Reading
Investing Expertise
LLMs Facing Their Shortcomings as Stock and Bond Market Traders
Is the evolving set of artificial intelligence (AI) platforms based on large language models (LLM) useful to investors for trading stock and bond market daily directions? As a simple exploration, we pose to each of Grok, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the following prompt: Please read the paper “Do AIs Make Good Traders, and Do They… Keep Reading
Aesthetic Investments, Equity Premium
Are ESG ETFs Attractive?
Do exchange-traded funds selecting stocks based on environmental, social, and governance characteristics (ESG ETF) typically offer attractive performance? To investigate, we compare performance statistics of eight ESG ETFs, all currently available, to those of simple and liquid benchmark ETFs, as follows: iShares MSCI USA ESG Select ETF (SUSA), with SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) as… Keep Reading
Miscellaneous
Weekly Summary of Research Findings: 7/20/26 – 7/24/26
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/20/26 through 7/24/26. 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.
Strategic Allocation
Are iShares Core Allocation ETFs Attractive?
The four iShares Core Asset Allocation exchange-traded funds (ETF) offer exposures to U.S. stocks, global stocks and bonds semiannually rebalanced to fixed weights, as follows. iShares Core Conservative Allocation (AOK) – 30% stocks and 70% bonds (30-70). iShares Core Moderate Allocation (AOM) – 40% stocks and 60% bonds (40-60). iShares Core Growth Allocation (AOR) –… Keep Reading
Currency Trading, Economic Indicators
Asset Class ETF Interactions with the Yen
How do different asset classes interact with the Japanese yen-U.S. dollar exchange rate? To investigate, we consider relationships between Invesco CurrencyShares Japanese Yen (FXY) and the exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies used in the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) or the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) at a monthly measurement… Keep Reading
Currency Trading, Economic Indicators
Asset Class ETF Interactions with the Euro
How do different asset classes interact with euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate? To investigate, we consider relationships between Invesco CurrencyShares Euro Currency (FXE) and the exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies used in the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) or the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) at a monthly measurement frequency. Using… Keep Reading
Currency Trading, Economic Indicators
Asset Class ETF Interactions with the U.S. Dollar
How do different asset classes interact with U.S. dollar valuation? To investigate, we consider relationships between Invesco DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP) and the exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies used in the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) or the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) at a monthly measurement… Keep Reading
Equity Premium
Very Passive Portfolios of S&P 500 Stocks
What happens when investors largely ignore their stock holdings over intervals of one, five and ten years? In his June 2026 paper entitled “Returns to ‘Do-Nothing’ Portfolios”, Hendrik Bessembinder studies returns to “do-nothing” portfolios constructed from the stocks that comprise the S&P 500 index as of the end of each year since 1970. Do-nothing means… Keep Reading