Investing Research Articles

Are company stock buybacks equivalent to cash dividends for stockholders? Conversely, are company sales of stock “undividends” for stockholders? A forthcoming article in the April 2007 Journal of Finance addresses these questions. In the underlying September 2005 paper entitled “On the Importance of Measuring Payout Yield: Implications for Empirical Asset Pricing”, Jacob Boudoukh, Roni Michaely,… Keep Reading

…there is no reliable weather-sun-moon risk premium.

…implied or expected volatility (VIX) should tentatively be viewed as a fifth factor in modeling stock returns because it affects them both directly in a multi-factor model and indirectly through the other risk factors.

…only about 20% of all hedge funds have produced after-fee returns that clearly beat those of statistical replicants that mechanically trade a basket of liquid futures contracts.

As the esteemed, erudite chorus of the downside constantly reminds us, Bear Claus…

…analysts tend to walk their earnings forecasts down as release of actuals approaches, and this walk-down effect is stronger for analysts that have good relationships with management.

…naive customers for services with outcomes for which it is hard to distinguish skill from luck will attract and sustain a diverse set of quacks.

…the stocks of companies least admired by the ostensibly well-informed may well outperform the stocks of the companies most admired.

…the small positive alpha of hedge funds in aggregate is likely to move toward the negative alpha of the mutual fund industry in the coming years.

Is aggregate investor sentiment a useful trading indicator? For what kinds of stocks is sentiment trading most likely to work? In their December 2006 paper entitled “Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market”, Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler summarize a top down approach to addressing these questions, focusing on the measurement of aggregate sentiment and its… Keep Reading