Investing Research Articles

Simple moving averages (SMA) are perhaps the most widely used and simplest market regime indicators. For example, many investors estimate that a stock index, exchange-traded fund (ETF) or individual stock priced above (below) its 200-day SMA is in a good (bad) regime. Do SMA signals/signal combinations usefully and consistently distinguish good and bad regimes across… Keep Reading

The Inflation Forecast now incorporates actual total and core Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for April 2020. The actual total (core) inflation rate is much lower than (much lower than) forecasted.

The Weekly Economic Index (WEI) is a composite of weekly year-over-year percentage changes in 10 economic indicators: Redbook same-store sales; Rasmussen Consumer Index; new claims for unemployment insurance; continued claims for unemployment insurance; adjusted income/employment tax withholdings; railroad traffic originated; the American Staffing Association Staffing Index; steel production; wholesale sales of gasoline, diesel and jet… Keep Reading

Using quarterly data in their April 2013 preliminary paper entitled “Analyzing Federal Reserve Asset Purchases: From Whom Does the Fed Buy?” Seth Carpenter, Selva Demiralp, Jane Ihrig and Elizabeth Klee find that some categories of investors appear to sell U.S. Treasuries to the Federal Reserve and rebalance toward riskier assets (corporate bonds, commercial paper, and… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 5/3/20 through 5/8/20. 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.

A subscriber suggested review of “Accelerating Dual Momentum [ADM] Investing”, which allocates all funds to U.S. stocks, international (ex-U.S.) small-capitalization stocks or long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, as follows: Each month, calculate for each of the two equity assets the sum of its 1-month, 3-month and 6-month past returns. If both sums are negative, buy U.S…. Keep Reading

A subscriber requested measurement of a “premium” associated with U.S. stocks relative to those of other developed markets by looking at the difference in returns between the following two exchange-traded funds (ETF): SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund (EFA) Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for these ETFs during August 2001 (limited by… Keep Reading

A subscriber requested measurement of a “premium” associated with stocks of innovative technology firms by looking at the difference in returns between the following two exchange-traded funds (ETF): Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), which generally tracks the NASDAQ 100 Index SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for these ETFs during March 1999 (limited… Keep Reading

Do anomaly portfolios that are long (short) the tenth, or decile, of stocks with the highest (lowest) expected value-weighted returns based on some firm accounting variable or stock behavior really work on a net basis? In the May 2019 version of their paper entitled “Shorting Costs and Profitability of Long-Short Strategies”, Dongcheol Kim and Byeung… Keep Reading

Why do recent studies find that the value premium declines over time? In their April 2020 paper entitled “The Fundamental-to-Market Ratio and the Value Premium Decline”, Andrei Gonçalves and Gregory Leonard investigate whether book value (book equity, BE) is a good proxy for actual fundamental value (fundamental equity, FE). They measure FE for each firm… Keep Reading