Fundamental Valuation

Do firms with predictable sales seasonality continually “surprise” investors with good high season (bad low season) sales and thereby have predictable stock return patterns? In their May 2018 paper entitled “When Low Beats High: Riding the Sales Seasonality Premium”, Gustavo Grullon, Yamil Kaba and Alexander Nuñez investigate firm sales seasonality as a stock return predictor. Specifically, for each quarter, after excluding negative and zero sales observations, they divide quarterly sales by annual sales for that year. To mitigate impact of outliers, they then average same-quarter ratios over the past two years. They then each month:

1. Use the most recent average same-quarter, two-year sales ratio to predict the ratio for next quarter for each firm.
2. Rank firms into tenths (deciles) based on predicted sales ratios.
3. Form a hedge portfolio that is long (short) the market capitalization-weighted stocks of firms in the decile with the lowest (highest) predicted sales ratios.

Their hypothesis is that investors undervalue (overvalue) stocks experiencing seasonally low (high) sales. They measure portfolio monthly raw average returns and four alphas based on 1-factor (market), 3-factor (market, size, book-to-market), 4-factor (adding momentum to the 3-factor model) and 5-factor (adding profitability and investment to the 3-factor model) models of stock returns. Using data for a broad sample of non-financial U.S common stocks during January 1970 through December 2016, they find that: Keep Reading

Is use of a sampling interval much shorter than input variable measurement interval a useful statistical practice in financial markets research? In the April 2018 update of their paper entitled “Long Horizon Predictability: A Cautionary Tale”, flagged by a subscriber, Jacob Boudoukh, Ronen Israel and Matthew Richardson examine statistical reliability gains from overlapping measurements of long-horizon variables (such as daily or monthly sampling of 5-year returns or 10-year moving average earnings). They employ the widely used cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio (CAPE, or P/E10) for some examples. Based on illustrations and mathematical derivations, they conclude that: Keep Reading

Is the strong gain in the U.S. stock market following the November 2016 national election rational or irrational? In their February 2018 paper “Why Has the Stock Market Risen So Much Since the US Presidential Election?”, flagged by a subscriber, Olivier Blanchard, Christopher Collins, Mohammad Jahan-Parvar, Thomas Pellet and Beth Anne Wilson examine sources of the 25% U.S. stock market advance during November 2016 through December 2017. They consider four sources: (1) increases in actual and expected dividends; (2) perceived probability and the fact of a reduction in the corporate tax rate; (3) decrease in the U.S. equity risk premium; and, (4) an irrational price bubble. For the impact of the tax rate reduction on corporate income, they use estimates from the Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation. For the relationship between dividends and the equity risk premium, they assume the difference between dividend-price ratio and risk-free rate equals equity risk premium minus expected dividend growth rate. They also consider the effect of U.S. and European economic policy uncertainty on the U.S. equity risk premium. Using the specified data during November 2016 (and earlier for validation) through December 2017, they find that: Keep Reading

Does the increase in number of Bitcoin wallets at a rate that far exceeds growth in number of Bitcoins explain the dramatic rise in Bitcoin price? In the December revision of his paper entitled “Metcalfe’s Law as a Model for Bitcoin’s Value”, Timothy Peterson models Bitcoin price according to Metcalfe’ Law, which posits that the value of a network (Bitcoin) is a function of the number of possible pair connections (among Bitcoin wallets, assuming all are equal) and is therefore proportional to the square of the number of participants. Said differently, he models Bitcoin value based on supply (number of Bitcoins) and demand (number of Bitcoin wallets). Per Metcalfe’s Law, Bitcoin return is proportional to twice the growth rate of Bitcoin wallets. He tests the model via a least squares regression of actual Bitcoin price on modeled price with adjustment for inflation due to new Bitcoin creation. He applies the model to investigate claims of Bitcoin price manipulation during 2013-2014. Using number of Bitcoins and number of Bitcoin wallets at 60-day intervals during December 31, 2011 through September 30, 2017, he finds that:

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“Usefulness of P/E10 as Stock Market Return Predictor” investigates whether P/E10 (or Cyclically Adjusted Price-Earnings ratio, CAPE) usefully predicts U.S. stock market returns over the long run. That analysis employs Robert Shiller’s data set, which defines P/E10 as inflation-adjusted S&P Composite Index level divided by average monthly inflation-adjusted 12-month trailing earnings of index companies over the last ten years. Do more timely country P/E10 series work for timing country stock markets and trading pairs of country stock markets? Within each country market, higher (lower) P/E10 suggests overvaluation (undervaluation). Across countries, variation in P/E10 gaps arguably indicates which country markets are relatively overvalued and undervalued. To investigate, we consider:

• P/E10 time series for Germany, Japan and the U.S. evaluated separately over available sample periods using DAX, Nikkei 225 and S&P 500 indexes, respectively. We also look at separately timing SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) and iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ).
• Japan P/E10 versus U.S. P/E10 for pair trading of SPY versus EWJ over the available sample period.

Using monthly data for the three P/E10s, the three associated stock market indexes, SPY, EWJ and 3-month U.S. Treasury bill (T-bill) yield as available during December 1981 through December 2017, we find that: Keep Reading

Is value investing particularly profitable when the price spread between cheap and expensive assets (the value spread) is extremely large (deep value)? In their November 2017 paper entitled “Deep Value”, Clifford Asness, John Liew, Lasse Pedersen and Ashwin Thapar examine how the performance of value investing changes when the value spread is in its largest fifth (quintile). They consider value spreads for seven asset classes: individual stocks within each of four global regions (U.S., UK, continental Europe and Japan); equity index futures globally; currencies globally; and, bond futures globally. Their measures for value are:

• Individual stocks – book value-to-market capitalization ratio (B/P).
• Equity index futures – index-level B/P, aggregated using index weights.
• Currencies – real exchange rate based on purchasing power parity.
• Bonds – real bond yield (nominal bond yield minus forecasted inflation).

For each of the seven broad asset classes, they each month rank assets by value. They then for each class form a hedge portfolio that is long (short) the third of assets that are cheapest (most expensive). For stocks and equity indexes, they weight portfolio assets by market capitalization. For currencies and bond futures, they weight equally. To create more deep value episodes, they construct 515 sub-classes from the seven broad asset classes. For asset sub-classes, they use hedge portfolios when there are many assets (272 strategies) and pairs trading when there are few (243 strategies). They conduct both in-sample and out-of-sample deep value tests, the latter buying value when the value spread is within its top inception-to-date quintile and selling value when the value spread reverts to its inception-to-date median. Using data as specified and as available (starting as early as January 1926 for U.S. stocks and as late as January 1988 for continental Europe stocks) through September 2015, they find that:

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What firm/asset/market conditions signal mispricing? In the November 2017 version of their paper entitled “Bonds, Stocks, and Sources of Mispricing”, Doron Avramov, Tarun Chordia, Gergana Jostova and Alexander Philipov investigate drivers of U.S. corporate stock and bond mispricing based on interactions among asset prices, financial distress of associated firms and investor sentiment. They measure financial distress via Standard & Poor’s long term issuer credit rating downgrades. They measure investor sentiment primarily with the multi-input Baker-Wurgler Sentiment Index, but they also consider the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment index and the Consumer Confidence Index. They each month measure asset mispricing by:

1. Ranking firms into tenths (deciles) based on each of 12 anomalies: price momentum, earnings momentum, idiosyncratic volatility, analyst forecast dispersion, asset growth, investments, net operating assets, accruals, gross profitability, return on assets and two measures of net share issuance.
2. Computing for each firm the equally weighted average of its anomaly rankings, such that a high (low) average ranking indicates the firms’s assets are relatively overpriced (underpriced).

Using monthly firm, stock and bond data for a sample of U.S. firms with sufficient data and investor sentiment during January 1986 through December 2016, they find that: Keep Reading

Do firms that acquire patents in similar technologies persistently perform similarly? In the October 2017 draft of their paper entitled “Technology and Return Predictability”, Jiaping Qiu, Jin Wang and Yi Zhou examine monthly performance persistence of stocks grouped by similarity in recent firm patent activity. Specifically, they:

1. Record the patent activity of each firm by patent class over the most recent three calendar years.
2. Quantify similarity of this patent activity for each pair of firms.
3. Segregate firms into innovation groups based on patent activity similarity (top fifth of quantified similarities).
4. For each month during the next calendar year:
   • Rank stocks into fifths (quintiles) based on average prior-month, similarity-weighted return of their respective groups.
   • Form a hedge portfolio that is long (short) the equal-weighted or value-weighted stocks in the highest (lowest) return quintile.

They focus on gross average monthly return and stock return factor model alphas of the hedge portfolio as evidence of firm innovation group performance persistence. Using firm patent information by technology class during 1968 through 2010, and monthly stock data, quarterly institutional holdings and analyst coverage for a broad sample of U.S. stocks priced greater than $1 during 1968 through 2011, they find that:

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Do strongly accelerating firm earnings identify future outperforming stocks? In the October 2017 revision of their paper entitled “Earnings Acceleration and Stock Returns”, Shuoyuan He and Ganapathi Narayanamoorthy investigate the power of earnings acceleration (quarter-over-quarter change in earnings growth, which is year-over-year change in quarterly earnings) to predict abnormal stock returns. They test a hedged trading strategy that long (short) the equal-weighted tenth, or decile, of stocks with the highest (lowest) earnings acceleration for two holding intervals: (1) starting two days after earnings announcement and ending on day 30; and, (2) starting two days after earnings announcement and ending one day after the next quarterly earnings announcement. They allocate new earnings accelerations to deciles based on the prior-quarter distribution of values of earnings acceleration. They define abnormal return as that in excess of the capitalization-weighted market return. Using quarterly firm characteristics and earnings data and daily returns for a broad sample of U.S. stocks, excluding financial and utility stocks, during January 1972 through December 2015, they find that: Keep Reading

Should investors view stock returns around recurring firm events in aggregate as an exploitable anomaly? In their October 2017 paper entitled “Recurring Firm Events and Predictable Returns: The Within-Firm Time-Series”, Samuel Hartzmark and David Solomon review the body of research on relationships between recurring firm events and future stock returns. They classify events as predictable (1) releases of information or (2) corporate distributions, with some overlap. Information releases include earnings announcements, dividend announcements, earnings seasonality and predictable increases in dividends. Corporate distributions cover dividend ex-days, stock splits and stock dividends. They specify a general trading strategy to exploit these events that is long (short) stocks of applicable firms during months with (without) predictable events. They use market capitalization weighting but, since there are often more stocks in the short side, they scale short side weights downward so that overall long and short sides are equal in dollar value. Based on the body of research and updated analyses based on firm event data and associated stock prices from initial availabilities through December 2016, they conclude that:

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