Investing Research Articles

Is aggregate net U.S. public company stock buyback activity a useful predictor of U.S. stock market return? To investigate, we relate the quarterly FRED Security Repurchase Agreements; Nonfinancial Corporate Business series (buybacks) to quarterly S&P 500 Index (SP500) returns. This FRED series tracks dollar values of aggregate net stock buybacks by nonfinancial corporations. Specifically, we… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/14/25 through 7/18/25. 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 U.S. equity factor return momentum broader and stronger for a short momentum measurement lookback interval than for a long one? In their July 2025 paper entitled “Revisiting Factor Momentum: A One-month Lag Perspective”, Mikael Rönkkö and Joonas Holmi compare U.S. equity factor momentum for 1-month and 12-month lookback intervals. They consider individual factor time… Keep Reading

The four iShares Core Asset Allocation exchange-traded funds (ETF) offer exposures to U.S. stocks, global stocks and bonds semiannually rebalanced to fixed weights, as follows. iShares Core Conservative Allocation (AOK) – 30% stocks and 70% bonds (30-70). iShares Core Moderate Allocation (AOM) – 40% stocks and 60% bonds (40-60). iShares Core Growth Allocation (AOR) –… Keep Reading

Do S&P 500 earnings growth rates predict S&P 500 Index (SP500) returns? To investigate, we relate actual 12-month SP500 operating earnings growth rate and as-reported earnings growth rate measured quarterly to SP500 quarterly return. We use 12-month earnings growth rates to avoid confounding calendar effects. Actual earnings releases for a quarter occur throughout the next… Keep Reading

To determine whether the stock market is expensive or cheap, some experts use aggregate valuation ratios, either trailing or forward-looking, such as earnings-price ratio (E/P) and dividend yield. Under belief that such ratios are mean-reverting, most imminently due to movement of stock prices, these experts expect high (low) future stock market returns when these ratios… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/7/25 through 7/11/25. 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.

How is the growing use of large language models (LLM) in production of academic papers in finance affecting outputs? In their June 2025 paper entitled “Certainly! Generative AI and its Impact on Academic Writing (in Finance)”, Thomas Walther and Marie Dutordoir investigate how use of LLMs has affected academic writing in finance, with focus on… Keep Reading

Can investors safely capture the U.S. stock market volatility risk premium (VRP), the tendency of implied volatility to exceed realized volatility. In their June 2025 paper entitled “The Volatility Edge, A Dual Approach For VIX ETNs Trading”, Carlo Zarattini, Andrew Aziz and Antonio Mele concisely review the history of volatility trading. They then investigate whether… Keep Reading

Do the trading activities of especially informed equity and equity option traders predict stock returns? In the June 2025 revision of their paper entitled “An Information Factor: What Are Skilled Investors Buying and Selling?”, Matthew Ma, Xiumin Martin, Matthew Ringgenberg and Guofu Zhou construct an information factor (INFO) using the trades of corporate insiders, short… Keep Reading