June 1, 2017 - Mutual/Hedge Funds
Do investors view (mechanical) smart beta returns from mutual funds as (skillful) alpha? In the April 2017 update of their paper entitled “Fake Alpha”, Marcel Müller, Tobias Rosenberger and Marliese Uhrig-Homburg investigate the conflation of smart beta (“fake alpha”) and true alpha (incremental to smart beta and generated by skill) by mutual fund managers and investors. In estimating smart beta… Keep Reading
May 31, 2017 - Calendar Effects
Does “sell-in-May” interact with the U.S. election cycle? In the April 2017 update of their paper entitled “Buy Equities in Winter and Sell in May in Pre-Election Years: Market Premiums and Political Uncertainty in the Presidential Cycle”, Kam Fong Chan and Terry Marsh examine interactions between seasonal (May-October versus April-November) and U.S. election cycle effects on U.S. Stock… Keep Reading
May 30, 2017 - Equity Premium
Are equity sector and factor investing complementary? In their May 2017 paper entitled “Factors vs. Sectors in Asset Allocation: Stronger Together?”, Marie Briere and Ariane Szafarz compare efficient sector investing (diversifying economic risks) and efficient factor investing (diversifying across risk factors) for U.S. stocks, and then assess advantages of combining the two approaches. They first construct two efficient… Keep Reading
May 26, 2017 - Strategic Allocation, Volatility Effects
What modifications must investors make to minimum variance portfolios to make them more attractive than equal weighting? In their April 2017 paper entitled “Asset Allocation with Correlation: A Composite Trade-Off”, Rachael Carroll, Thomas Conlon, John Cotter and Enrique Salvador assess conditions under which a minimum variance portfolio (requiring only estimates of asset covariances) beats an equally weighted portfolio. In particular, they… Keep Reading
May 25, 2017 - Mutual/Hedge Funds
Has availability of liquid exchange-traded funds (ETF) designed to exploit predictive stock market factors (smart beta ETFs) affected the mutual fund industry? In their May 2017 paper entitled “How Do Smart Beta ETFs Affect the Asset Management Industry? Evidence from Mutual Fund Flows”, Jie Cao, Jason Hsu, Zhanbing Xiao and Xintong Zhan examine the impact of ETFs that do… Keep Reading
May 24, 2017 - Fundamental Valuation, Investing Expertise
How accurate are consensus firm earnings forecasts worldwide at a 12-month horizon? In his May 2016 paper entitled “An Empirical Study of Financial Analysts Earnings Forecast Accuracy”, Andrew Stotz measures accuracy of consensus 12-month earnings forecasts by financial analysts for the companies they cover around the world. He defines consensus as the average for analysts coverings… Keep Reading
May 19, 2017 - Animal Spirits
Does relative demand for crowd-sourced information about a stock compared to other information (such as financial statements and analyst estimates) predict its performance? In their March 2017 paper entitled “Investor Reliance on the Crowd”, Alastair Lawrence, James Ryans, Estelle Sun and Akshay Soni investigate interactions between reliance on crowd-sourced information (Yahoo Finance message board page views) versus other information… Keep Reading
May 18, 2017 - Individual Gurus, Investing Expertise
What happens to the rankings of Guru Grades after weighting each forecast by forecast horizon and specificity? In their March 2017 paper entitled “Evaluation and Ranking of Market Forecasters”, David Bailey, Jonathan Borwein, Amir Salehipour and Marcos Lopez de Prado re-evaluate and re-rank market forecasters covered in Guru Grades after weighting each forecast by these two parameters. They employ… Keep Reading
May 17, 2017 - Aesthetic Investments, Gold
What research is available bearing on silver, platinum and palladium as investments? In their April 2017 paper entitled “The Financial Economics of White Precious Metals – A Survey”, Samuel Vigne, Brian Lucey, Fergal O’Connor and Larisa Yarovaya summarize the body of academic research on the financial economics of silver, platinum and palladium. The survey covers relevant studies of… Keep Reading
May 16, 2017 - Currency Trading
How profitable is automated multi-horizon extraction of liquidity premiums in currency exchange markets? In their April 2017 paper entitled “The Alpha Engine: Designing an Automated Trading Algorithm”, Anton Golub, James Glattfelder and Richard Olsen introduce an adaptive counter-trend algorithmic trading system that seeks liquidity premiums from price series via automated trades at adaptive market events. The… Keep Reading