Do investors focus on dividends, thereby elevating associated stock prices as ex-dividend date approaches? In the September 2011 draft of their paper entitled “The Dividend Month Premium”, Samuel Hartzmark and David Solomon examine the price behavior...
Does the size effect vary with the state of the economy? In his October 2010 paper entitled “The Behaviour of Small Cap vs. Large Cap Stocks in Recessions and Recoveries: Empirical Evidence for the United...
What is the state of the equity risk premium across global markets? In the October 2011 version of their paper entitled “Equity Premia Around the World”, Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh, and Mike Staunton update their...
Past research indicates that returns for stocks associated with share buybacks (secondary offerings) tend to be abnormally high (low) in subsequent years, suggesting that management successfully times the market and investors respond slowly to the...
Can the forward-looking aspect of the S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) amplify technical analysis? In their September 2011 paper entitled “Using VIX Data to Enhance Technical Trading Signals”, James Kozyra and Camillo Lento apply nine simple technical trading...
Do oil price variations reliably affect returns for U.S. industry-level stock portfolios? In the June 2011 draft of their paper entitled “U.S. Industry-Level Returns and Oil Prices”, Qinbin Fan and Mohammad Jahan-Parvar apply several tests to investigate how...
Do U.S. stock market returns during the first and last hours of normal trading days reliably indicate what comes next? To investigate, we analyze average SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) returns during 9:30-10:30, 9:30-15:00, 9:30-16:00 and 15:00-16:00...
Does the U.S. stock market exhibit predictable return and volatility patterns during the trading day? To investigate, we analyze one-minute prices for SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) over two recent years. Specifically, we calculate average cumulative return,...
Has the stock market adapted to widespread investor efforts to exploit intermediate-term return momentum? In their paper entitled “Momentum Loses Its Momentum: The Implication on Market Efficiency”, Debarati Bhattacharya, Raman Kumar and Gokhan Sonaer evaluate...
Do distinct neural processes for rewards and punishments result in distinct variation in learning about financial gains and financial losses? If so, is such variation material to wealth-building? In their September 2011 paper entitled “Gain...
Does news lead the stock market? In his September 2011 paper entitled “Reuters Sentiment and Stock Returns”, Matthias Uhl tests whether aggregate Thomson Reuters news sentiment (feeling, opinion or emotion evoked while reading a Reuters news article)...
Does the semantic tone of an earnings announcement, as measured independently of the level of earnings surprise, affect stock price reaction. In his September 2011 paper entitled “Short-term Reactions to News Announcements”, Michal Dzielinski investigates the...
Does a simple strategy of iteratively selling covered calls (buy-write) on the Russell 2000 Index beat buying and holding the index? In their September 2011 paper entitled “15 Years of the Russell 2000 Buy‐Write”, Nikunj Kapadia and Edward Szado evaluate returns on ten alternative buy‐write strategies...
The conventional binary animal metaphor for markets is bull (good returns, low volatility) and bear (poor returns, high volatility). Does rigorous analysis of empirical evidence support belief in (just) two market states? In their September...
Do the different ways of investing in gold produce similar outcomes? In their September 2011 paper entitled “A Comparative Analysis of the Investment Characteristics of Alternative Gold Assets”, Tim Pullen, Karen Benson and Robert Faff examine...
In their September 2011 paper entitled “The Impact of Asymmetry on Expected Stock Returns: An Investigation of Alternative Risk Measures”. Stephen Huffman and Cliff Moll investigate the relation between various measures of lagged total, downside and...
What is the best way to incorporate commodities into a diversified portfolio? In her August 2011 paper entitled “Long-Short Commodity Investing: Implications for Portfolio Risk and Market Regulation”, Joelle Miffre studies the performance of long-short commodity...
A reader suggested reviewing the detailed track record of SweetSpot Investments LLC, consisting of 29 closed trades over the past 12 years. The basic SweetSpot strategy posits market-beating three-year reversion of the three least popular “sectors” out...
Do sophisticated asset allocation strategies beat simple ones? In the December 2010 version of their paper entitled “Risk Parity Portfolio vs. Other Asset Allocation Heuristic Portfolios”, Denis Chaves, Jason Hsu Feifei Li and Omid Shakernia conduct...
In his 2011 book entitled The Market Taker’s Edge: Insider Strategies from the Options Trading Floor, author Dan Passarelli “offers lessons from the trading pits from the perspective of a professional trader turned options evangelist for the benefit of...
Do investors in aggregate respond to “staged” CEO visibility? In the August 2011 update of their paper entitled “CEO Interviews on CNBC”, Felix Meschke and Andy Kim investigate whether planned interviews with CEOs on financial...
What is the state of momentum investing? In their January 2011 paper entitled “Momentum”, Narasimhan Jegadeesh and Sheridan Titman summarize equity price momentum research and discuss explanations for the momentum anomaly. Specifically, they address equity momentum...
Do hedge funds rely on off-the-beaten-track (illiquid) positions to fuel performance? In his April 2011 paper entitled “Hedge-Fund Performance and Liquidity Risk”, Ronnie Sadka investigates aggregate market liquidity as a predictor of hedge fund performance. His...
Can traders reliably play price jumps associated with surprising economic news releases? In their September 2011 paper entitled “Information Driven Price Jumps and Trading Strategy: Evidence from Stock Index Futures”, Hong Miao, Sanjay Ramchander and Kenton Zumwalt examine...
Does aggregate social network sentiment, as measured by Facebook’s Gross National Happiness (GNH), predict future stock market returns? In his August 2011 preliminary draft paper entitled “Can Facebook Predict Stock Market Activity?”, Yigitcan Karabulut investigates the...