Recent Investing Research

Does breadth of equity sector performance predict overall stock market return? To investigate, we relate next-month stock market return to sector breadth (number of sectors with positive past returns) over lookback intervals ranging from 1 to 12 months. We consider the following nine sector exchange-traded funds (ETF) offered as Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts (SPDR):… Keep Reading

Is there a better way to identify attractive and unattractive assets than simply ranking them? In the August 2020 version of their paper entitled “Decoding Systematic Relative Investing: A Pairs Approach”, Christian Goulding, Campbell Harvey and Alex Pickard examine a long-short strategy that periodically reforms a portfolio by evaluating all possible pairs within an asset… Keep Reading

Do gold and gold mining stocks exhibit exploitable seasonality? Using monthly closes for spot gold and the S&P 500 Index since December 1974, PHLX Gold/Silver Sector (XAU) since December 1983, AMEX Gold Bugs Index (HUI) since June 1996 and SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) since November 2004, all through September 2020, we find that:

Does equity factor portfolio reformation (rebalancing) schedule materially affect portfolio performance? In their February 2020 paper entitled “Rebalance Timing Luck: The (Dumb) Luck of Smart Beta”, Corey Hoffstein, Nathan Faber and Steven Braun measure rebalance timing luck (RTL) in returns for long-only portfolios of S&P 500 stocks selected based on: Value – trailing 12-month earnings… Keep Reading

Subscribers have asked whether substituting Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) for SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) as a proxy for gold improves the performance of the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS)? To check, we backtest the strategy twice using either GLD or GDX to represent gold, and then compare results. Using dividend-adjusted closing prices for SACEMS… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 10/12/20 through 10/16/20. 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.

Which institutional investors do best and why? In the September 2020 update of their paper entitled “The Canadian Pension Fund Model: A Quantitative Portrait”, Alexander Beath, Sebastien Betermier, Chris Flynn and Quentin Spehner compare performances of Canadian pension funds and those of other countries, focusing on Sharpe ratio of the fund assets, Sharpe ratio of… Keep Reading

Based on the conventional definition of the value premium, value underperforms growth over last 13.5 years with maximum drawdown of a long value-short growth portfolio -55%. Is value investing dead? In the August 2020 update of their paper entitled “Reports of Value’s Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated”, Robert Arnott, Campbell Harvey, Vitali Kalesnik and Juhani… Keep Reading

What economic/financial variables are most useful in predicting re-election prospects for incumbent U.S. presidents? In the November 2012 revision of their paper entitled “Social Mood, Stock Market Performance and U.S. Presidential Elections: A Socionomic Perspective on Voting Results”, Robert Prechter, Deepak Goel, Wayne Parker and Matt Lampert analyze relationships between prior U.S. economic and equity… Keep Reading

The Inflation Forecast now incorporates actual total and core Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for September 2020. The actual total (core) inflation rate is slightly lower than (slightly lower than) forecasted.