Investing Research Articles

Business media and expert commentators sometimes cite the monthly University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index as an indicator of U.S. economic and stock market health, generally interpreting a jump (drop) in sentiment as good (bad) for future consumption and stocks. The release schedule for this indicator is mid-month for a preliminary reading on the current… Keep Reading

Do hopes and fears of U.S. election outcomes, associated political machinations, alter the “normal” seasonal variation in monthly stock market returns? To check, we compare average returns and variabilities (standard deviations of returns) by calendar month for the S&P 500 Index during years with and without quadrennial U.S. presidential elections and biennial congressional elections. Using… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/10/20 through 8/14/20. 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.

Is systematically selling equity put options, as implemented by exchange-traded funds (ETF), attractive? To investigate, we consider four equity put-write ETFs, two dead and two living: US Equity High Volatility Put Write (HVPW) – oriented toward individual stocks (dead). ALPS Enhanced Put Write Strategy (PUTX) – index-oriented (dead). WisdomTree CBOE S&P500 PutWriteStrat (PUTW) – index-oriented (living)…. Keep Reading

Does the real (inflation-adjusted) price of gold indicate future gold return? If so, what is the current indication? In their August 2020 paper entitled “Gold, the Golden Constant, COVID-19, ‘Massive Passives’ and Déjà Vu”, Claude Erb, Campbell Harvey and Tadas Viskanta examine behavior and implications of real gold price (gold price in U.S. dollars per… Keep Reading

Do exchange-traded funds selecting stocks based on environmental, social, and governance characteristics (ESG ETF) typically offer attractive performance? To investigate, we compare performance statistics of seven ESG ETFs, all currently available, to those of simple and liquid benchmark ETFs, as follows: iShares MSCI USA ESG Select ETF (SUSA), with SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) as… Keep Reading

Do stocks added to major indexes, such as the S&P 500 Index, exhibit exceptionally strong subsequent returns? In their July 2020 paper entitled “Does Joining the S&P 500 Index Hurt Firms?”, Benjamin Bennett, René Stulz and Zexi Wang investigate effects on firms/stocks of joining the S&P 500 Index and whether these effects change over time…. Keep Reading

“Countercyclical Asset Allocation Strategy” summarizes research on a simple countercyclical asset allocation strategy that systematically raises (lowers) the allocation to an asset class when its current aggregate allocation is relatively low (high). The underlying research is not specific on calculating portfolio allocations and returns. To corroborate findings, we use annual mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) allocations… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/3/20 through 8/7/20. 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.

Is the nominal incentive fee charge by hedge funds (typically 20% of profits exceeding a previous high-water mark) representative of the actual aggregate incentive fee paid by fund investors? In the July 2020 revision of their paper entitled “The Performance of Hedge Fund Performance Fees”, Itzhak Ben-David, Justin Birru and Andrea Rossi (1) quantify the… Keep Reading