Investing Research Articles

Do “bubble” stocks (those with high shorting demand and small borrowing supply) exhibit unconventional momentum behaviors? In their December 2018 paper entitled “Overconfidence, Information Diffusion, and Mispricing Persistence”, Kent Daniel, Alexander Klos and Simon Rottke examine how momentum effects for bubble stocks differ from conventional momentum effects. They each month sort stocks into groups independently as follows:… Keep Reading

…the sentiment of institutional (private) investors probably has some (no) value in predicting stock market returns over a six-month horizon.

…investors may be able to generate substantial abnormal returns by combining the effects of earnings and accruals surprises, qualified by overall firm operating performance.

…evidence from simple tests indicates that the TimingCube market timing advisory service may outperform a buy-and-hold strategy over periods that include bear market conditions, but that nimble use of 200-day simple moving average crossover signals may do as well or better than TimingCube signals.

Five years ago, a reader noted and asked: “CNBC’s Fast Money cited a ‘seasonal’ strategy described in Barron’s, as follows: Go long the market from Wal-Mart’s (WMT) earnings release until Alcoa’s (AA) earnings release and short the market from Alcoa’s earnings release until Wal-Mart’s earnings release (earnings season). Over the last six years, the market… Keep Reading

Are January returns important to the profitability of short-term reversal, intermediate-term momentum, long-term reversion and 12-month echo trading strategies? In her December 2010 paper entitled “Momentum, Seasonality and January”, Yaqiong Yao investigates the role of  January returns within these previously discovered anomalies. The study’s core methodology is to reform equally weighted hedge portfolios each month… Keep Reading

Do analysts who work for hedge funds make good calls? In their November 2011 paper entitled “Do Buy-side Recommendations Have Investment Value?”, Steven Crawford, Wesley Gray, Bryan Johnson and Richard Price III profile analysts employed by mutual funds, hedge funds and other investment firms and examine whether these experts make good trading recommendations. Using personal data and… Keep Reading

Is “Shorting Leveraged ETF Pairs” a good idea? In their brief March 2012 paper entitled “Levered ETFs”, Wenxi Jiang and Hongjun Yan examine the returns from matched positions in long and short leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETF). Specifically, they calculate returns from shorting matched pairs. Using data for matched 2X/-2X and 3X/-3X ETFs during 2007 through 2011, they find that:

Does the condition of S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) futures relative to spot VIX (contango or backwardation) predict exploitable VIX futures returns? In their June 2012 paper entitled “The VIX Futures Basis: Evidence and Trading Strategies”, David Simon and Jim Campasano investigate the predictability and exploitability of VIX futures returns based on whether VIX futures are… Keep Reading

Does mean-variance optimization enhance the performance of currency carry trades (long currencies with high interest rates and short currencies with low interest rates)? In their November 2012 paper entitled “On the Risk and Return of the Carry Trade”, Fabian Ackermann, Walt Pohl and Karl Schmedders compare a dynamic mean-variance optimal carry trade strategy to naive… Keep Reading