Investing Research Articles

Are stock quality strategies, as implemented by exchange-traded funds (ETF), attractive? To investigate, we consider six ETFs, all currently available (from oldest to youngest): Invesco S&P 500 Quality ETF (SPHQ) – seeks to track performance of S&P 500 stocks with the highest quality scores based on firm return on equity, accruals ratio and financial leverage… Keep Reading

The Inflation Forecast now incorporates actual total and core Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for June 2025. The actual total (core) inflation rate is a little lower than (a little lower than) forecasted.

Do S&P 500 earnings growth rates predict S&P 500 Index (SP500) returns? To investigate, we relate actual 12-month SP500 operating earnings growth rate and as-reported earnings growth rate measured quarterly to SP500 quarterly return. We use 12-month earnings growth rates to avoid confounding calendar effects. Actual earnings releases for a quarter occur throughout the next… Keep Reading

To determine whether the stock market is expensive or cheap, some experts use aggregate valuation ratios, either trailing or forward-looking, such as earnings-price ratio (E/P) and dividend yield. Under belief that such ratios are mean-reverting, most imminently due to movement of stock prices, these experts expect high (low) future stock market returns when these ratios… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/7/25 through 7/11/25. 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.

How is the growing use of large language models (LLM) in production of academic papers in finance affecting outputs? In their June 2025 paper entitled “Certainly! Generative AI and its Impact on Academic Writing (in Finance)”, Thomas Walther and Marie Dutordoir investigate how use of LLMs has affected academic writing in finance, with focus on… Keep Reading

Can investors safely capture the U.S. stock market volatility risk premium (VRP), the tendency of implied volatility to exceed realized volatility. In their June 2025 paper entitled “The Volatility Edge, A Dual Approach For VIX ETNs Trading”, Carlo Zarattini, Andrew Aziz and Antonio Mele concisely review the history of volatility trading. They then investigate whether… Keep Reading

Do the trading activities of especially informed equity and equity option traders predict stock returns? In the June 2025 revision of their paper entitled “An Information Factor: What Are Skilled Investors Buying and Selling?”, Matthew Ma, Xiumin Martin, Matthew Ringgenberg and Guofu Zhou construct an information factor (INFO) using the trades of corporate insiders, short… Keep Reading

Blockchain is a decentralized, secure digital ledger that automatically records transactions across many computers. Each block of data contains a list of transactions, with blocks linked to form a chain. Cryptography ensures integrity and immutability of block data. Could broad use of blockchain technology make financial markets better? In their May 2025 paper entitled “Crypto… Keep Reading

A subscriber asked whether behaviors of other asset classes predict those of real estate investment trusts (REIT) as proxied by Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund ETF Shares (VNQ). To investigate, we relate VNQ monthly returns to monthly returns of four exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies: SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) iShares 20+ Year Treasury… Keep Reading