Investing Research Articles

Are publicly traded Master Limited Partnerships attractive investments? In their June 2014 paper entitled “Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs)”, Frank Benham, Steven Hartt, Chris Tehranian and Edmund Walsh describe and summarize the aggregate performance and characteristics of publicly traded MLPs. These partnerships are predominantly owners of “toll road” energy infrastructure, U.S. oil and natural gas pipelines… Keep Reading

Does quantitative technical analysis work reliably in currency trading? If so, where does it work best? In their May 2013 paper entitled “Forty Years, Thirty Currencies and 21,000 Trading Rules: A Large-Scale, Data-Snooping Robust Analysis of Technical Trading in the Foreign Exchange Market”, Po-Hsuan Hsu and Mark Taylor test the effectiveness of a broad set… Keep Reading

In which country stock markets is technical analysis likely to work best? In the October 2014 version of her paper entitled “Technical Analysis: A Cross-Country Analysis”, Jiali Fang investigates three potential cross-country determinants of technical trading profitability: An individualism index, measuring the degree to which individuals integrate via cultural groups. Market development and integrity metrics, including stock market size, stock market… Keep Reading

Do factor models predict returns for corporate bonds as they do for stocks? In their October 2014 paper entitled “Factor Investing in the Corporate Bond Market”, Patrick Houweling and Jeroen van Zundert develop and test a four-factor (size, low-risk, value and momentum) model of future corporate bond returns. Each month for investment grade and high yield bond market segments… Keep Reading

Is the Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) segment so crowded that flows of funds into or out of them around the turn of the month materially affect prices? In the October 2014 version of his paper entitled “The MOM-TOM Effect: Detecting the Market Impact of CTA Trading”, Otto Van Hemert explores whether the trend-following or time series… Keep Reading

Is there a way to predict when stock price momentum strategies will thrive or crash? In the October 2014 update of their draft paper entitled “Time-Varying Momentum Payoffs and Illiquidity”, Doron Avramov, Si Cheng and Allaudeen Hameed investigate the relationship between future momentum strategy profitability and market illiquidity. They measure momentum conventionally as the average gross monthly return… Keep Reading

What conditions foretell stock momentum strategy crashes? In their October 2014 paper entitled “Momentum Trading, Return Chasing, and Predictable Crashes”, Benjamin Chabot, Eric Ghysels and Ravi Jagannathan examine stock momentum strategy performance for both widely used historical U.S. data (starting in 1926 through 2012) and for a hand-collected sample of stocks listed on the London Stock Exchange during 1866 to… Keep Reading

Do expected investment returns as predicted by experts in surveys reliably predict actual future returns? In the October 2014 version of their preliminary paper entitled “Survey Expectations of Returns and Asset Pricing Puzzles”, Ralph Koijen, Maik Schmeling and Evert Vrugt compare survey-based expected returns to actual future returns for three major asset classes encompassing: 13 country equity market indexes; 19 currencies… Keep Reading

Are gains from tax-loss harvesting, the systematic taking of capital losses to offset capital gains, additive to or subtractive from premiums from portfolio tilts toward common factors such as value, size, momentum and volatility (smart beta)? In their October 2014 paper entitled “Factor Tilts after Tax”, Lisa Goldberg and Ran Leshem look at the effects on portfolio performance… Keep Reading

Which is the better equity investment strategy: (1) a consistent portfolio tilt toward one or a few factors widely accepted, based on linear regression backtests, as effective in selecting stocks with above-average performance (smart beta); or, (2) a more complex strategy that seeks to identify stocks with above-average performance via potentially dynamic relationships with a set of many proprietary… Keep Reading