Investing Research Articles

A subscriber asked whether behaviors of other asset classes predict those of real estate investment trusts (REIT) as proxied by Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund ETF Shares (VNQ). To investigate, we relate VNQ monthly returns to monthly returns of four exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies: SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) iShares 20+ Year Treasury… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 6/30/25 through 7/3/25. 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.

Do private equity funds beat the public equity market, as implied by allocations of large investors such as university endowments, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds? In his June 2025 paper entitled “Apples and Oranges: Benchmarking Games and the Illusion of Private Equity Outperformance”, Ludovic Phalippou updates private equity fund performance, focusing on 2000-2019 vintage… Keep Reading

Given the body of research on the outperformance of low-risk stocks, should the equity asset pricing community add a low-volatility factor in standard models of stock returns? In their June 2025 paper entitled “Factoring in the Low-Volatility Factor”, Amar Soebhag, Guido Baltussen and Pim van Vliet investigate adding a low-volatility factor to standard models via… Keep Reading

How do different asset classes interact with euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate? To investigate, we consider relationships between Invesco CurrencyShares Euro Currency (FXE) and the exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies used in the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) or the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) at a monthly measurement frequency. Using… Keep Reading

The main criticism of conventional volatility (standard deviation of returns) as a risk metric is that weights deviations above and below the mean equally. But, is volatility still adequate for most investors as an indicator of downside risk? In his June 2025 paper entitled “Volatility: A Dead Ringer for Downside Risk”, Javier Estrada compares Spearman… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 6/23/25 through 6/27/25. 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 do different asset classes interact with U.S. dollar valuation? To investigate, we consider relationships between Invesco DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP) and the exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies used in the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) or the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) at a monthly measurement… Keep Reading

Could mutual fund managers achieve performance improvements by “hiring” artificial intelligence (AI) analysts? In their May 2025 working draft entitled “The Shadow Price of ‘Public’ Information”,  Ed deHaan, Chanseok Lee, Miao Liu and Suzie Noh estimate the value of an AI stock picking analyst by having it exploit public data to improve mutual fund holdings. Specifically,… Keep Reading

How fast should individuals plan to grow net worth as they age? To investigate, we examine median levels of household (1) total net worth and (2) net worth excluding home equity from several vintages of U.S. Census Bureau data. We make the following head-of-household age cohort assumptions: “Less than 35 years” means about age 30. “35 to… Keep Reading