Investing Research Articles

Does the S&P 500 implied volatility index (VIX) exhibit reliable intraday and day-of-week patterns? In their December 2016 paper entitled “The Intraday Properties of the VIX and the VXO”, Adrian Fernandez-Perez, Bart Frijns, Alireza Tourani-Rad and Robert Webb investigate daily and intraday properties of VIX and its predecessor, the S&P 100 implied volatility index (VXO). VIX maintains constant… Keep Reading

Does high-frequency trading amplify noise and thereby reduce the signal-to-noise ratio in stock returns? In his August 2010 paper entitled “The Effect of High-Frequency Trading on Stock Volatility and Price Discovery”, Frank Zhang examines the effect of high-frequency trading on stock price volatility and on incorporation of fundamental news into price. He defines high-frequency trading… Keep Reading

As requested by a reader, we evaluate here the quarterly market commentary of Stephen Leeb since January 2003 (much of commentary archive removed in occasional site redesigns) with respect to his outlook for U.S. stocks. Stephen Leeb is president of Leeb Capital Management, Inc., editor of The Complete Investor newsletter and author of several books. The… Keep Reading

Do stock dividends exhibit exploitable risk premiums? In their July 2018 paper entitled “A Model-Free Term Structure of U.S. Dividend Premiums”, Maxim Ulrich, Stephan Florig and Christian Wuchte construct a term structure of the dividend risk premium and test strategies to time this premium at specific horizons. They specify dividend risk premium as the spread between: Expected dividend growth… Keep Reading

Since 7/9/09, Christophe Faugère has been publishing (almost) daily “Market Estimates” of the value of the S&P 500 Index based on Required Yield Theory (RYT). RYT views investors as: (1) requiring that U.S. stocks and bonds in aggregate prospectively provide a real after-tax yield directly related to real long-term GDP per capita growth; and then,… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 3/4/19 through 3/8/19. 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.

As suggested by a reader, we expand here an evaluation of overall stock market forecasts from the commentaries of Carl Futia, available since April 2005. The main tools that Carl Futia uses to analyze financial markets are the theory of contrary opinion, his box theory and the work of George Lindsay on ‘repeating time intervals’…. Keep Reading

Can traders exploit irrational reactions to Jim Cramer’s stock recommendations by viewers of CNBC’s Mad Money? In their March 2006 paper entitled “Is the Market Mad? Evidence from Mad Money“, Joseph Engelberg, Caroline Sasseville and Jared Williams measure the market’s reaction to Mr. Cramer’s buy recommendations. Using a sample of 246 initial recommendations made by… Keep Reading

Can investors reliably capture illiquidity-driven stock price noise, short-term deviations in price from some measurable fair value? In their February 2024 paper entitled “Intraday Residual Reversal in the U.S. Stock Market”, Jonathan Brogaard, Jaehee Han and Hanjun Kim investigate returns to a strategy that exploits reversals of short-lived noise in stock prices by buying (selling)… Keep Reading

We evaluate here the weekly “Ahead of the Curve” columns in SmartMoney.com since August 2001 (the earliest available). The author, Don Luskin, is the Chief Investment Officer for Trend Macrolytics LLC. The table below quotes forecast highlights from the cited source and shows the performance of the S&P 500 Index over various numbers of trading days… Keep Reading