Investing Research Articles

Are the sources of active mutual fund risk mostly common (systematic) or unique (idiosyncratic)? In his July 2014 paper entitled “Components of Portfolio Variance: R2, SelectionShare and TimingShare”, Anders Ekholm decomposes mutual fund return variance (risk) into three sources: (1) passive systematic factor exposure (R-squared); (2) active security selection or stock picking (SelectionShare); and, (3) active systematic factor… Keep Reading

Is there some better predictor of long-term stock market return than the widely cited cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio (P/E10 or CAPE)? In the July 2014 version of his paper entitled “Forecasting Equity Returns: An Analysis of Macro vs. Micro Earnings and an Introduction of a Composite Valuation Model”, Stephen Jones compares how well several fundamental and economic factors predict real long-term (10-year)… Keep Reading

Do the behaviors of the most widely accepted stock market factors (size, book-to-market or value, and momentum) vary with the economic trend? In the June 2014 version of their paper entitled “Macroeconomic Determinants of Cyclical Variations in Value, Size and Momentum premium in the UK”, Golam Sarwar, Cesario Mateus and Natasa Todorovic examine differences in the sensitivities of UK equity market size,… Keep Reading

Can investors exploit monthly persistence in the value premium for U.S. stocks? In his February 2014 paper entitled “Exploiting Factor Autocorrelation to Improve Risk Adjusted Returns”, Kevin Oversby investigates whether investors can exploit the fact that the Fama-French model high-minus-low (HML) value factor exhibits positive monthly autocorrelation (persistence). The HML factor derives from the difference in performance between portfolios of… Keep Reading

Are Morningstar’s Ultimate Stock-Pickers good stock pickers? In his June 2014 paper entitled “Using Random Portfolios to Evaluate the Performance of the Ultimate Stock-Pickers Index”, Stefaan Pauwels compares the quarterly volatility-adjusted performances of the Morningstar Ultimate Stock-Pickers (USP) top buys, top holdings and top sells to those of many randomly generated (zero-skill) portfolios. Morningstar specifies USP members as fund… Keep Reading

Do hedge fund managers who use technical analysis beat those who do not? In their May 2014 paper entitled “Sentiment and the Effectiveness of Technical Analysis: Evidence from the Hedge Fund Industry”, David Smith, Na Wang, Ying Wang and Edward Zychowicz examine the relative performance of users and non-users of technical analysis among hedge fund managers in different sentiment environments. They hypothesize that… Keep Reading

…Robert Taylor’s accuracy rate probably derives not from forecasting ability but from defining targets that are very hard to miss. The accuracy rate seems high only if one ignores the peculiar way he defines trends.

Does growth in a firm’s operating costs signal trouble for its stock? In their June 2014 preliminary paper entitled “Cost Growth and Stock Returns”, Dashan Huang, Fuwei Jiang, Jun Tu and Guofu Zhou examine the relationship between growth in operating costs and future stock returns. They measure operating cost growth as the annual percentage change in costs of goods… Keep Reading

Does intensity of firm quarterly earnings releases affect stock market behaviors? A reader proposed the following stock market timing strategy based on a strictly calendar-based definition of earnings season: go short (long) the market at the close at the end of the first full week (sixth full week) of each calendar quarter, representing the beginning… Keep Reading

Do commonly used indicators reliably predict stock size, value and momentum strategy returns? In the June 2014 version of his paper entitled “A Comprehensive Look at Size, Value and Momentum Return Predictability”, Afonso Januario examines the abilities of 17 fundamental and technical indicators and indicator combinations to anticipate returns for these three factors. He defines factor portfolios… Keep Reading