The time of year affects human activities and moods, both through natural variations in the environment and through artificial customs and laws. Do such calendar effects systematically and significantly influence investor/trader attention and mood, and thereby equity prices? These blog entries relate to calendar effects in the stock market.
March 12, 2019 - Calendar Effects, Gold
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 January 2019, we find that: Keep Reading
March 8, 2019 - Calendar Effects, Momentum Investing, Strategic Allocation
“Optimal Monthly Cycle for SACEMS?” investigates whether using a monthly cycle other than end-of-month (EOM) to pick winning assets improves performance of the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS). This strategy each month picks winners from the following set of exchange-traded funds (ETF) based on total returns over a specified lookback interval:
PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM)
iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA)
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
3-month Treasury bills (Cash)
In response, a subscriber asked whether sticking with an EOM cycle for determining the winner, but delaying signal execution, affects strategy performance. To investigate, we compare 23 variations of SACEMS portfolios that all use EOM to pick winners but shift execution from the contemporaneous EOM to the next open or to closes over the next 21 trading days (about one month). For example, EOM+5 uses an EOM cycle to determine winners but delays execution until the close five trading days after EOM. We focus on gross compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and maximum drawdown (MaxDD) as key performance statistics for the Top 1, equally weighted (EW) Top 2 and EW Top 3 portfolios of monthly winners. Using daily dividend-adjusted opens and closes for the asset class proxies and the yield for Cash during February 2006 (limited by DBC) through January 2019, we find that: Keep Reading
March 4, 2019 - Animal Spirits, Calendar Effects
Does persistence in the difference in direction between overnight stock trading and intraday stock trading behaviors (tug of war) predict future returns? In their January 2019 paper entitled “Overnight Returns, Daytime Reversals, and Future Stock Returns: The Risk of Investing in a Tug of War with Noise Traders”, Ferhat Akbas, Ekkehart Boehmer, Chao Jiang and Paul Koch investigate relationships between intensity of the daily tug-of-war between between overnight (noise) and intraday (other) stock traders and future stock returns. They specify tug-of-war intensity as percentage of trading days during a month for which a stock exhibits negative (or positive) daytime reversals divided by average monthly percentage of negative (or positive) reversals over the last 12 months. They then examine whether either negative or positive tug-of-war intensity predicts future stock returns. Using overnight/intraday stock returns for a broad sample of U.S. common stocks, along with monthly returns for widely accepted factors, during May 1993 through December 2017, they find that:
February 21, 2019 - Calendar Effects, Equity Premium, Momentum Investing, Value Premium, Volatility Effects
Do very old data confirm reliability of widely accepted asset return factor premiums? In their January 2019 paper entitled “Global Factor Premiums”, Guido Baltussen, Laurens Swinkels and Pim van Vliet present replication (1981-2011) and out-of-sample (1800-1908 and 2012-2016) tests of six global factor premiums across four asset classes. The asset classes are equity indexes, government bonds, commodities and currencies. The factors are: time series (intrinsic or absolute) momentum, designated as trend; cross-sectional (relative) momentum, designated as momentum; value; carry (long high yields and short low yields); seasonality (rolling “hot” months); and, betting against beta (BAB). They explicitly account for p-hacking (data snooping bias) and further explore economic explanations of global factor premiums. Using monthly global data as available during 1800 through 2016 to construct the six factors and four asset class return series, they find that:
February 20, 2019 - Calendar Effects, Volatility Effects
Does choice of multi-asset portfolio rebalance date(s) materially affect performance? In their October 2018 paper entitled “Rebalance Timing Luck: The Difference Between Hired and Fired”, Corey Hoffstein, Justin Sibears and Nathan Faber investigate effects of varying portfolio rebalance date on performance. Specifically, they quantify noise (luck) from varying annual rebalance date for a 60% S&P 500 Index-40% 5-year constant maturity U.S. Treasury note (60-40) U.S. market portfolio. Using monthly total returns for these two assets during January 1922 through June 2018, they find that: Keep Reading
February 19, 2019 - Calendar Effects, Commodity Futures
Does crude oil exhibit an exploitable price seasonality? To check, we examine three monthly series:
We focus on average monthly returns by calendar month and variabilities of same. Using monthly prices from respective inceptions of these series through December 2018, we find that: Keep Reading
January 28, 2019 - Calendar Effects
Investor mood may affect financial markets. Sports may affect investor mood. The biggest mood-mover among sporting events in the U.S. is likely the National Football League’s Super Bowl. Is the week before the Super Bowl especially distracting and anxiety-producing? Is the week after the Super Bowl focusing and anxiety-relieving? Presumably, post-game elation and depression cancel between respective fan bases. Using past Super Bowl dates since inception and daily/weekly S&P 500 Index levels for 1967 through 2018 (52 events), we find that: Keep Reading
January 3, 2019 - Calendar Effects
The full-year Trading Calendar indicates that the U.S. stock market has three phases over the calendar year, corresponding to calendar year trading days 1-84 (January-April), 85-210 (May-October) and 211-252 (November-December). What are typical stock market returns and return variabilities for these phases? Using daily S&P 500 Index closes during 1950 through 2018 (69 years), we find that: Keep Reading
January 2, 2019 - Calendar Effects
Trading Calendar presents full-year and monthly cumulative performance profiles for the overall U.S. stock market (proxied by the S&P 500 Index) based on its average daily behavior since 1950. Do monthly behaviors of U.S. stock market sectors deviate from the overall market profile? To investigate, we consider the nine Select Sector Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts (SPDR) exchange-traded funds (ETF), all of which originate in December 1998:
Materials Select Sector SPDR (XLB)
Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE)
Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF)
Industrial Select Sector SPDR (XLI)
Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK)
Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP)
Utilities Select Sector SPDR (XLU)
Health Care Select Sector SPDR (XLV)
Consumer Discretionary Select SPDR (XLY)
Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for these ETFs, along with contemporaneous data for SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) as a benchmark, during December 1998 through December 2018 (20 years), we find that: Keep Reading
December 14, 2018 - Calendar Effects, Commodity Futures
As a follow-up to “Sunspot Cycle and Stock Market Returns” a reader asked: “Sunspot activity does have a direct relationship to weather. Could one speculate on the agriculture market using the sunspot cycle?” To investigate, we relate sunspot activity to the fairly long U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) for grains. Using monthly averages of daily sunspot counts and monthly PPI for grains during January 1926 (limited by PPI data) through October 2018, we find that: Keep Reading