Investing Research Articles

Which factor models of stock returns are currently best? In their June 2018 paper entitled “q5“,  Kewei Hou, Haitao Mo, Chen Xue and Lu Zhang, introduce the q5 model of stock returns, which adds a fifth factor (expected growth) to the previously developed q-factor model (market, size, asset growth, return on equity). They measure expected growth as 1-year, 2-year and… Keep Reading

Are published studies that predict higher returns for some U.S. stocks and lower for others based on firm accounting, stock trading and other data reproducible? In their May 2020 paper entitled “Open Source Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing”, Andrew Chen and Tom Zimmermann make available data and code that reproduce many published cross-sectional stock return predictors, allowing… Keep Reading

Is it possible that all the 300+ published factors that predict stock returns (such as size, value, profitability, investment, momentum…) derive from data snooping? In his October 2018 paper entitled “The Limits of Data Mining: A Thought Experiment”, Andrew Chen estimates how much data snooping would be required to “discover” all these factors by pure luck. Specifically,… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 12/3/18 through 12/7/18. 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.

Should investors trust academic equity factor research? In their February 2019 paper entitled “A Census of the Factor Zoo”, Campbell Harvey and Yan Liu announce a comprehensive database of hundreds of equity factors from top academic journals and working papers through January 2019, including a link to citation and download information. They distinguish among six… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 12/23/19 through 12/27/19. 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.

Is there a better stock value ratio than commonly used ones such as book-to-market, dividend-to-price, earnings-to-price and cash flow-to-price ratios? In the January 2020 revision of his paper entitled “A New Value Strategy”, Baolian Wang investigates the effectiveness of cash-based operating profitability-to-price (COP/P) as a value ratio. He computes COP as operating profitability minus accruals,… Keep Reading

How can researchers assess the true value and robustness of new stock return anomalies (predictors) in consideration for addition to the factor zoo? In their January 2023 paper entitled “Assaying Anomalies”, Robert Novy-Marx and Mihail Velikov present a protocol/tool set for dissecting and understanding newly proposed cross-sectional stock return predictors. The tools address the most… Keep Reading

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

Is aggregate data snooping bias (p-hacking) in financial markets research a big issue or a minor concern? In their June 2021 paper entitled “Uncovering the Iceberg from Its Tip: A Model of Publication Bias and p-Hacking”, Campbell Harvey and Yan Liu model the severity of p-hacking based on the view that there are, in fact,… Keep Reading