Investing Research Articles

How much does accounting for equity factor portfolio maintenance frictions affect usefulness of factor models of stock returns. In their March 2021 paper entitled “Model Selection with Transaction Costs”, Andrew Detzel, Robert Novy-Marx and Mihail Velikov examine effects of transaction costs on six leading models of stock returns: FF5 – Fama-French 5-factor model (market, size,… Keep Reading

Do smart beta indexes efficiently exploit factor premiums? In his April 2016 paper entitled “Factor Investing with Smart Beta Indices”, David Blitz investigates how well smart beta indexes, which deviate from the capitalization-weighted market per mechanical rules, capture corresponding factor portfolios. He consider five factors: value, momentum, low-volatility, profitability and investment. He measures their practically exploitable premiums via returns on long-only… Keep Reading

Which equity factors from among those included in the most widely accepted factor models are really important? In their October 2019 paper entitled “Winners from Winners: A Tale of Risk Factors”, Siddhartha Chib, Lingxiao Zhao, Dashan Huang and Guofu Zhou examine what set of equity factors from among the 12 used in four models with… Keep Reading

Why and how should investors pursue investment premiums associated with factors that explain performance differences among related assets (like common stocks)? In the January 2015 version of his paper entitled “Better Investing Through Factors, Regimes and Sensitivity Analysis”, Cristian Homescu summarizes recent research on: (1) factor-based investing; (2) enhancement of factor-based investing via regime switching models; and, (3) strategy robustness testing. Factor… Keep Reading

Is more clearly better in terms of number of factors included in a stock screening strategy? In the October 2014 draft of their paper entitled “Incremental Variables and the Investment Opportunity Set”, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French investigate the effects of adding to an established multi-factor model of stock returns an additional factor that by itself has power to… Keep Reading

How well do mutual funds exploit theoretical (academic) equity factor premiums, and how well do investors exploit such exploitation? In their January 2019 paper entitled “Factor Investing from Concept to Implementation”, Eduard Van Gelderen, Joop Huij and Georgi Kyosev examine: (1) how performances of mutual funds that target equity factor premiums (low beta, size, value, momentum, profitability, investment)… Keep Reading

Under current U.S. accounting rules, many investments in innovation, human resources and brand that are crucial to long-term competitiveness immediately reduce operating profits and earnings (are expensed rather than capitalized). Does failure to incorporate such intangible investments in firm investment and valuation ratios (book-to-market, profitability and return on equity) harm equity investment decisions? In their… Keep Reading

Does active stock factor exposure management boost overall portfolio performance? In their November 2018 paper entitled “Optimal Timing and Tilting of Equity Factors”, Hubert Dichtl, Wolfgang Drobetz, Harald Lohre, Carsten Rother and Patrick Vosskamp explore benefits for global stock portfolios of two types of active factor allocation: Factor timing – exploit factor premium time series predictability based on economic indicators and… Keep Reading

Do the choices researchers make when constructing factor portfolios to explain stock returns materially affect their findings? In their June 2022 paper entitled “Mind Your Sorts”, Amar Soebhag, Bart van Vliet and Patrick Verwijmeren examine the extent to which such construction choices affect factor performance. They consider 11 distinct long-short factors as used in widely… Keep Reading

Do returns for equity factors (long stocks with high expected returns and short stocks with low expected returns based on some firm/stock trading characteristic) broadly and reliably exhibit momentum? In other words, do factors with strong (weak) returns in recent months have strong (weak) returns next month? In the February 2019 revision of their paper… Keep Reading