Momentum Investing

Are value and momentum anomalies reliably present across international asset classes? If so, can investors exploit them to generate abnormal returns? In the December 2007 version of their paper entitled “Global Tactical Cross-Asset Allocation: Applying Value and Momentum Across Asset Classes”, David Blitz and Pim van Vliet examine global tactical asset allocation strategies across a broad range of asset classes based on both value (asset yield or earnings yield) and momentum (both short-term and long-term). These strategies weight asset classes according to volatility, with higher (lower) weights assigned to classes with lower (higher) volatilities. Using price and yield data for 12 international asset classes spanning January 1985 through September 2007, they conclude that: Keep Reading

Are momentum trading strategies profitable after accounting for trading costs? In their August 2007 draft paper entitled “Low-Cost Momentum Strategies”, Xiafei Li, Chris Brooks and Joelle Miffre analyze the impact of transaction costs on the profitability of momentum strategies for UK stocks. They consider all combinations of 3-month, 6-month and 12 month ranking and holding periods. Using stock price data for 3,520 UK companies and separately for the constituents of the FTSE 100 index (large capitalization stock sample) and the Alternative Investment Market (AIM – small capitalization stock sample) over the period 1986-2005, they conclude that: Keep Reading

A reader notes and asks: “It is frequently said that stocks at 52-week highs are the most likely to outperform in the future. Is there any academic evidence to support this assertion?” In their October 2004 Journal of Finance article entitled “The 52-Week High and Momentum Investing”, Thomas George and Chuan-Yang Hwang examine the explanatory power of the 52-week high in the context of momentum investing. They compare the 52-week high as a momentum indicator to benchmark momentum strategies that employ six months of past returns to forecast six months of future returns. Using price data for a broad range of stocks over the period 1963-2001, they find that: Keep Reading

Has the focus of investors/traders (especially hedge funds) on stock return momentum, the persistence of outperformance and underperformance, killed the effect? In their March 2007 paper entitled “The Disappearance of Momentum”, Soosung Hwang and Alexandre Rubesam investigate trends in the momentum effect over a long period. Their baseline analysis examines sets of ten momentum-ranked portfolios formed on past five-month returns and held for six months, with an intervening month skipped. Using monthly return data for a large number of individual NYSE, AMEX and Nasdaq stocks over the period July 1926 through December 2005, they conclude that: Keep Reading

Do investors/traders taking cues from the trades of top performers produce the momentum effect? In his December 2006 paper entitled “Follow the Leader: Peer Effects in Mutual Fund Portfolio Decisions”, Lukasz Pomorski investigates whether actively managed equity mutual funds tend to follow the stock trading leads of outperforming peers as the picks become known via the media and quarterly filings. He defines outperforming (leader) funds in two ways: (1) funds with alphas in the top 5% over the past two years, and (2) funds on the Forbes Honor Roll (high media exposure). He calculates overall leader activity in a stock based only on trades by leader funds with a position in the stock. Using mutual fund holdings and performance data for 1980-2003 (96 quarters), he finds that: Keep Reading

Do investors really sell winners and hold losers, thereby helping the market beat them? In other words, are they reluctant to admit mistakes? In their November 2006 paper entitled “Is the Aggregate Investor Reluctant to Realize Losses? Evidence from Taiwan”, Brad Barber, Yi-Tsung Lee, Yu-Jane Liu and Terrance Odean investigate whether the average investor exhibits the disposition effect, the tendency to sell winning investments at a faster rate than losing investments. Using data for all trades on the Taiwan Stock Exchange during 1995-1999 (over one billion trades by nearly four million traders), they conclude that: Keep Reading

How are momentum stock trading strategies doing these days? In their January 2006 paper entitled “The Vanishing Abnormal Returns of Momentum Strategies and ‘Front-running’ Momentum Strategies”, Thomas Henker, Martin Martens and Robert Huynh examine the returns of various momentum trading strategies in general and during specific market conditions (rising or falling) over the period 1993-2004. They construct a series of self-financing portfolios (equal-weighted) for various holding periods by buying past winners and selling past losers based on various past performance (ranking) periods. Some strategies include a one-month gap between the ranking and holding periods. They repeat portfolio construction monthly over the sample period for each strategy, resulting in overlapping portfolios. Finally, they test “front-running” strategies that set momentum rankings five days before the ends of months rather than at month-ends. Using daily data to calculate monthly returns for a broad sample of stocks (with all distributions reinvested), they find that: Keep Reading

Value and momentum are two very different equity investing styles, both with many adherents. Neither outperforms the overall market all the time. Is there some systematic way of combining these two approaches to enhance consistency of outperformance in global equity markets? In their March 2006 paper entitled “Generating Excess Returns through Global Industry Rotation”, Geoffrey Loudon and John Okunev examine different investing styles (momentum, value, combination of value and momentum, and growth) to exploit cyclic industry returns, with the U.S. yield curve as the critical economic indicator. Using monthly global prices, dividends, earnings and returns data for 36 industries for 1973-2005, they conclude that: Keep Reading

We have selected for retrospective review a few all-time “best selling” research papers of the past few years from the General Financial Markets category of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Here we summarize the February 1999 paper entitled “Daily Momentum And Contrarian Behavior Of Index Fund Investors” (download count almost 1,900) by William Goetzmann and Massimo Massa. The authors investigate the existence and profitability of momentum and contrarian behaviors for stock index trading. They classify return momentum investors (trend followers) as those who buy (sell) when the market rises (drops) in the previous trading session, and return contrarian investors as “profit takers” who sell (buy) when the market rises (drops). They also examine investor response to changes in market volatility, defining both volatility momentum traders (risk chasers) and volatility contrarian traders (risk avoiders). Using daily activity records for 91,000 accounts trading an S&P 500 index during 1997 and 1998, the authors find that: Keep Reading

In their September 2005 paper entitled “Acceleration Strategies”, Eric Gettleman and Joseph Marks examine the change in six-month stock price momentum (a second derivative of price with respect to time, which the authors call “acceleration”) for individual companies as a potential indicator of future performance. Does increasing (decreasing) stock price momentum indicate commensurate relative outperformance (underperformance)? Based on monthly data spanning 1926-2003, they conclude that: Keep Reading