Equity Premium

How has the market environment changed with the introduction of zero-commission trading and associated interest in trading among many inexperienced users? In their January 2021 paper entitled “Zero-Commission Individual Investors, High Frequency Traders, and Stock Market Quality”, Gregory Eaton, Clifton Green, Brian Roseman and Yanbin Wu examine market implications of growth in trading by a new subclass of retail investors represented by Robinhood users, focusing on January 2020 through August 2020 when the number of Robinhood users becomes very large. They isolate Robinhood user impacts by comparing market behaviors during Robinhood outages (real-time complaints by at least 200 Robinhood users on DownDetector.com) to those during similar times of day the prior week. They rely on the Reddit WallStreetBets forum and lagged trading activity to identify which stocks Robinhood users would have traded during outages. Using hourly (normal market hours) breadth of stock ownership data for Robinhood users from Robintrack (stocks with minimum average ownership 500 and daily minimum owners 50) and associated stock trading data during July 2018 through August 2020 (when the RobinTrack dataset ends), they find that:

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How can the retail trader tail wag the market dog? In their February 2021 paper entitled “The Equity Market Implications of the Retail Investment Boom”, Philippe van der Beck and Coralie Jaunin quantify impacts of the Robinhood-catalyzed retail trading boom on the U.S. stock market. They focus on the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which retail trading soars and institutional investors rebalance their portfolios. They approximate retail trading based on account holdings data from RobinTrack and institutional rebalancing based on SEC Form 13F filings. Using RobinTrack account U.S. common stock holdings data as available through the first half of 2020 (discontinued August 2020) and institutional common stock holdings as disclosed in 13F filings during January 2005 through June 2020, they find that: Keep Reading

Why have so many quantitative funds performed poorly in recent years? In his January 2021 paper entitled “The Quant Crisis of 2018-2020: Cornered by Big Growth”, David Blitz examines in detail recent (June 2018 through August 2020) performance of stock portfolios constructed from five widely accepted long-short factors:

1. Size – Small Minus Big (SMB) market capitalizations.
2. Value – High Minus Low (HML) book-to-market ratios.
3. Investment – Conservative Minus Aggressive (CMA).
4. Profitability – Robust Minus Weak (RMW).
5. Momentum – Winners Minus Losers (WML).

Using factor returns from the Kenneth French data library and additional firm/stock data for developed and U.S. markets to construct alternative factor performance tests from various start dates through August 2020, he finds that: Keep Reading

What performance should investors expect from the S&P 500 Index based on price-to-earnings (P/E) and Cyclically-Adjusted Price-to-Earnings (CAPE, or P/E10)? In their November 2020 paper entitled “Extreme Valuations and Future Returns of the S&P 500”, Shaun Rowles and Andrew Mitchell take a layered “regression upon a regression” approach to predict S&P 500 Index returns and level. First, to estimate future returns, they run a linear regression on P/E, P/E10, S&P 500 dividend yield, inflation, 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield, historical 1-year, 3-year, 5-year and 10-year S&P 500 Index returns and percentiles of many of these variables within their respective historical distributions. Then, they run separate linear regressions to predict 1-year, 3-year, 5-year and 10-year future annualized returns. Finally, they run a linear regression to model current S&P 500 Index level for comparison to actual current level. Using Robert Shiller’s U.S. stock market and economic data spanning January 1871 through June 2020, they find that: Keep Reading

A subscriber requested evaluation of three retirement investment alternatives, assuming a constant increment invested at the end of each month, as follows:

1. 50-50: allocate each increment via fixed percentages to stocks and bonds (for comparability, we use 50% to each).
2. Seasonal 1: during April through September (October through March), allocate 100% of each increment to stocks (bonds).
3. Seasonal 2: during April through September (October through March), allocate 100% of each increment to bonds (stocks).

The hypothesis is that seasonal variation in asset class allocations could improve overall long-term investment performance. We conduct a short-term test using SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) as a proxy for stocks and iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD) as a proxy for bonds. We then conduct a long-term test using Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares (VFINX) as a proxy for stocks and Vanguard Long-Term Investment-Grade Fund Investor Shares (VWESX) as a proxy for bonds. Based on the setup, we focus on terminal value as the essential performance metric. Using total (dividend-adjusted) returns for SPY and LQD since July 2002 and for VFINX and VWESX since January 1980, all through December 2020, we find that: Keep Reading

“Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) finds that investors may be able to exploit relative valuation of the term risk premium, the credit (default) risk premium and the equity risk premium via exchange-traded funds (ETF). However, the backtesting period is limited by available histories for ETFs and for series used to estimate risk premiums. To construct a longer test, we make the following substitutions for potential holdings (selected for length of available samples):

• Monthly average 3-Month Treasury Bill (T-bill) Secondary Market Rate instead of monthly average 3-Month T-bill Constant Maturity Rate as the risk-free rate and return on Cash.
• Vanguard GNMA Investor Shares (VFIIX) instead of  iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT).
• Vanguard Long-Term Investment Grade Investor Shares (VWESX) instead of iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD).
• Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares (VFINX) instead of SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).

To enable estimation of risk premiums over a longer history, we also substitute:

• Monthly average Moody’s Seasoned Baa Corporate Bond Yields rather than day before end-of-month Baa yields for calculation of the credit risk premium. This substitution ignores a one-day delay in release of daily data.
• Robert Shiller’s S&P Composite Index monthly average levels instead of S&P 500 Index monthly closes. This substitution ignores any delay in posting of Shiller data (but new data are available elsewhere in real time).
• Robert Shiller’s monthly S&P Composite Index (GAAP, or as-reported) earnings instead of S&P Dow Jones S&P 500 operating earnings. We lag the Shiller earnings by four months to ensure real-time availability. In other words, the earnings yield for a month is the S&P Composite Index level for that month divided by index annual GAAP earnings as of four months ago. GAAP earnings are generally lower than operating earnings (see “Stock Market Valuation Ratio Trends”).
• Robert Shiller’s monthly average Long Interest Rates instead of monthly average yields on 10-year Constant Maturity U.S. Treasury notes. This substitution ignores any delay in posting of Shiller data (but new data are again available elsewhere with little delay).

As with ETFs, we consider two alternatives for exploiting premium undervaluation: Best Value, which picks the most undervalued premium; and, Weighted, which weights all undervalued premiums according to degree of undervaluation. Based on the assets considered, the principal benchmark is a monthly rebalanced portfolio of 60% VFINX and 40% VFIIX. Using monthly risk premium calculation data during March 1934 through November 2020 (limited by availability of T-bill data), and monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for the three asset class mutual funds during June 1980 through November 2020 (40+ years, limited by VFIIX), we find that:

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Is there a better way than the Fed model to measure relative attractiveness of equities and bonds. In his October 2020 paper entitled “Towards a Better Fed Model”, Raymond Micaletti examines seven Fed Model alternatives, each comparing a 10-year forward annualized estimate of equity returns to the yield of 10-year constant maturity U.S. Treasury notes (T-note). The seven estimates of future equity returns are based on autocorrelation-corrected quarterly regressions using 10 years of past quarterly data for one of: (1) Aggregate Investor Allocation to Equities (AIAE); (2) Cyclically-Adjusted Price-to-Earnings Ratio (CAPE); (3) Tobin’s Q (QRATIO); (4) Market Capitalization-to-Nominal GDP (MC/GDP); (5) Market Capitalization-to-Adjusted Gross Value Added (MC/AGVANF); (6) Market Capitalization-to-Household and Non-Profit Total Assets (MC/HHNPTA); and, (7) Household and Non-Profit Equity Allocation-to-Nominal GDP (HHNPEQ/GDP). He calculates AIAE as total market value of equities divided by the sum of total market value of equities and total par value of bonds, approximated by adding the liabilities of five categories of borrowers. He then tests for each alternative a tactical asset allocation (TAA) strategy that each month weights equities and bonds based on a modified z-score of the forecasted 10-year equity risk premium (equity return minus T-note yield) computed by subtracting the median and dividing by the standard deviation of actual monthly premiums over the past 10 years. If modified z-score is greater than 1 (less than -1), the strategy is 100% in equities (0% in equities). In between those thresholds, weights are based on linear interpolation. Using quarterly data from the Archival Federal Reserve Economic Database (ALFRED) and Robert Shiller’s data library and daily U.S. equity market returns and U.S. Treasury bond/note roll-adjusted futures returns as available from the end of the fourth quarter of 1951 through the end of the third quarter of 2020, he finds that: Keep Reading

A subscriber asked about a strategy that switches between an equal-weighted portfolio of Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) and iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) when the S&P 500 Index is above its 200-day simple moving average (SMA200) and an equal-weighted portfolio of SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) when below. Also, more generally, is an equal-weighted portfolio of GLD and TLT (GLD:TLT) superior to TLT only for risk-off conditions? To investigate, we (1) backtest the switching strategy and (2) compare performances of GLD:TLT versus TLT when the S&P 500 Index is below its SMA200. We consider both gross and net performance, with the latter accounting for 0.1% portfolio switching frictions 0.001% daily portfolio rebalancing frictions (rebalancing one hundredth of portfolio value). As benchmarks, we consider buying and holding SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and a strategy that holds SPY (TLT) when the S&P 500 Index is above (below) its SMA200. Using daily S&P 500 Index levels starting February 5, 2004 and daily dividend-adjusted levels of QQQ, IWM, GLD, TLT and SPY starting November 18, 2004 (limited by inception of GLD), all through November 25, 2020, we find that:

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Do extreme equity market valuations represent opportunities in value stocks? In their October 2020 paper entitled “Extrapolators at the Gate: Market-wide Misvaluation and the Value Premium”, Stefano Cassella, Zhaojing Chen, Huseyin Gulen and Ralitsa Petkova test the hypothesis that extrapolating (momentum) investors bid up growth stocks in good times and bid down value stocks in bad times, such that the value premium concentrates during reversion from these conditions. Their principal measure of market valuation is average book value-to-market capitalization ratio (B/M) of all firms, excluding financial stocks, utility stocks and stocks priced ice less than $1. When monthly B/M is in the top (bottom) 10% of monthly values for the past 10 years, they deem the market overvalued (undervalued). For robustness, they consider other percentage cutoffs and an alternative metric that quantifies the distance between the current-month distribution of firm B/Ms and the distributions of over the past 10 years based on the Mann-Whitney U test. They further tie findings to investor expectations based on a long times series constructed from Gallup, American Association of Individual Investors and Investor Intelligence surveys of investors. Using monthly returns and accounting data for U.S. common stocks and the specified survey data during January 1962 through December 2018, they find that:

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Is the currency carry trade, as implemented by exchange-traded funds/notes (ETF/ETN), attractive? To investigate, we consider two currency carry trade ETF/ETNs, one live (with low trading volume) and one dead:

• PowerShares DB G10 Currency Harvest Fund (DBV) – tracks changes in the Deutsche Bank G10 Currency Future Harvest Index. This index consists of futures contracts on certain G10 currencies with up to 2:1 leverage to exploit the tendency that currencies with relatively high interest rates tend to appreciate relative to currencies with relatively low interest rates, reconstituted annually in November.
• iPath Optimized Currency Carry (ICITF) – provides exposure to the Barclays Optimized Currency Carry Index, which reflects the total return of a strategy that holds high-yielding G10 currencies financed by borrowing low-yielding G10 currencies. This fund stopped trading July 2018, but an indicative value is still available.

We focus on monthly return statistics, plus compound annual growth rates (CAGR) and maximum drawdowns (MaxDD). For reference (not benchmarking), we compare results to those for SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) and iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT). Using monthly total returns for the two currency carry trade products, SPY and TLT as available through October 2020, we find that: Keep Reading