Investing Research Articles

Are simple moving averages (SMA) useful for timing difficult-to-value Bitcoin? In their January 2018 paper entitled “Bitcoin: Predictability and Profitability Via Technical Analysis”, Andrew Detzel, Hong Liu, Jack Strauss, Guofu Zhou and Yingzi Zhu investigate the use of 5-day, 10-day, 20-day, 50-day or 100-day SMAs to predict Bitcoin returns. Specifically, they test a trading strategy that holds Bitcoins (cash) when… Keep Reading

In his January 2018 retrospective “Richard Thaler and the Rise of Behavioral Economics”, Nicholas Barberis reviews the development of behavioral (less than fully rational) models of economics and finance, with focus on Richard Thaler’s contributions. This retrospective summarizes key models that make psychology-based assumptions about: individual preferences; individual beliefs; and, the process by which individuals make decisions. He further segments… Keep Reading

Does appearance-based masculinity predict hedge fund manager performance? In their January 2018 paper entitled “Do Alpha Males Deliver Alpha? Testosterone and Hedge Funds”, Yan Lu and Melvyn Teo use facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a positively related proxy for testosterone level to investigate the relationship between male hedge fund manager testosterone level and hedge fund performance. They each… Keep Reading

Are financial advisors expert guides for their client investors? In their December 2017 paper entitled “The Misguided Beliefs of Financial Advisors”, Juhani Linnainmaa, Brian Melzer and Alessandro Previtero compare investing practices/results of Canadian financial advisors to those of their clients, including trading patterns, fees and returns. They estimate account alphas via multi-factor models. Using detailed data from two large… Keep Reading

How can machine investors beat humans? In the introductory chapter of his January 2018 book entitled “Financial Machine Learning as a Distinct Subject”, Marcos Lopez de Prado prescribes success factors for machine learning as applied to finance. He intends that the book: (1) bridge the divide between academia and industry by sharing experience-based knowledge in a… Keep Reading

Can a simple set of exchange-traded funds (ETF), weighted judiciously, mimic the behaviors of most financial assets? In their January 2018 paper entitled “Mimicking Portfolios”, Richard Roll and Akshay Srivastava present and test a way of constructing mimicking portfolios using a small set of ETFs as investment factor proxies. They define a mimicking portfolio as a weighted set of… Keep Reading

Want your machine to excel in investing? In his January 2018 paper entitled “The 10 Reasons Most Machine Learning Funds Fail”, Marcos Lopez de Prado examines common errors made by machine learning experts when tackling financial data and proposes correctives. Based on more than two decades of experience, he concludes that:

How should an investor’s view of the equity risk premium vary with investment horizon? In the December 2017 update of their paper entitled “Volatility Lessons”, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French examine how the U.S. equity risk premium (difference in returns between the expected equity market return over some horizon and return on U.S. Treasury instrument of matched… Keep Reading

The home page, “Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy” (SACEMS) and “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) now show preliminary positions for February 2018. For SACEMS, past returns for the first and second positions and for the third and fourth positions are close, such that rankings could change by the close. For SACEVS, allocations are… Keep Reading

How, in a nutshell, do momentum investing strategies work? In his December 2017 paper entitled “Keep Up the Momentum”, Thierry Roncalli summarizes the nature of the momentum premium in a less mathematical way than in the previously available “Understanding the Momentum Risk Premium: An In-Depth Journey Through Trend-Following Strategies”. He distinguishes between: Time-series or trend-following or intrinsic or… Keep Reading