Investing Research Articles

A subscriber requested a test of holding Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) during November through April and idle cash during May through October. Informed by the Trading Calendar, we consider four strategies: QQQ – buy and hold QQQ. QQQ Seasonal (Idle Cash) – hold QQQ during November through April and idle cash during May through October,… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 10/30/23 through 11/3/23. 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.

Are there ways to revive the fading performance of the short-term reversal (STR) strategy, which is long stocks with the lowest returns last month and short stocks with the highest? In their September 2023 paper entitled “Reversing the Trend of Short-Term Reversal”, David Blitz, Bart van der Grient and Iman Honarvar investigate revival of the… Keep Reading

Is public saving rate a leading indicator of the stock market? Arguably, an increase (decrease) in saving rate means a shift away from (toward) consumption, corporate earnings and associated stock value. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases seasonally adjusted Personal Saving Rate (PSR) monthly with a lag of about one month for initial release… Keep Reading

A reader asked: “Is disposable income a leading indicator of the stock market?” Arguably, an increase in disposable income could spur consumption, corporate earnings and associated stock values. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases seasonally adjusted Disposable Personal Income (DPI) monthly with a lag of about one month for initial release and two additional… Keep Reading

Does a simple relative momentum strategy applied to tradable U.S. Treasury term structure proxies produce attractive results by picking the best duration for exploiting the current interest rate trend? To investigate, we run short-term and long-term tests. The short-term test employs five exchange-traded funds (ETF) to represent the term structure: SPDR Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill… Keep Reading

Do target retirement date funds, offering glidepaths that shift asset allocations away from equities and toward bonds as target dates approach, safely generate attractive returns? To investigate, we consider seven such mutual funds offered by Vanguard, as follows: Vanguard Target Retirement 2020 Fund (VTWNX) Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund (VTTVX) Vanguard Target Retirement 2030 Fund… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 10/23/23 through 10/27/23. 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 individual asset classes react to monthly inflation indications? To investigate, we relate future monthly returns for the following 10 asset class exchange-traded fund (ETF) proxies to monthly changes in the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI): Equities: SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM) iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA) iShares MSCI Emerging… Keep Reading

Do Relative Rotation Graphs (RRG), which visually segregate assets into leading, weakening, lagging or improving quadrants by relative performance, effectively identify equity sectors with relatively strong future returns? In his September 2023 paper entitled “Dynamic Sector Rotation”, John Rothe tests an RRG-based sector relative momentum strategy with stop-loss risk management based on volatility. Specifically, he:… Keep Reading