July 5, 2017 Volatility Effects
Does unusual behavior of the distribution of stock betas predict overall market behavior? In her March 2017 paper entitled “Beta Dispersion and Market-Timing”, Laura-Chloé Kuntz investigates the attractiveness of stock market timing strategies based on the...
June 27, 2017 Volatility Effects
Does the options-based expected volatility of the expected volatility of the S&P 500 Index (expected volatility of VIX, or VVIX) convey useful information about future returns of related assets? In their April 2017 paper entitled “The Volatility-of-Volatility Term...
June 26, 2017 Fundamental Valuation, Strategic Allocation
Is there a way to enhance the ability of the cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratio (P/E10 or CAPE) to predict U.S. stock market returns by incorporating real interest rates? In their June 2017 paper entitled “Improving U.S....
June 21, 2017 Technical Trading
A subscriber requested tests exploring whether a recent death cross for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) portends an index crash. To investigate, we consider two ways of evaluating DJIA performance after death crosses and conversely...
June 20, 2017 Bonds, Momentum Investing
Does a dual momentum selection/weighting approach applied to the U.S. Treasuries term structure identify a safe haven superior to any one duration? In his February 2015 paper entitled “The Search for Crisis Alpha: Weathering the...
June 19, 2017 Strategic Allocation
What is the performance of the global multi-class market portfolio? In their June 2017 paper entitled “Historical Returns of the Market Portfolio”, Ronald Doeswijk, Trevin Lam and Laurens Swinkels estimate returns to a capitalization-weighted multi-class global market portfolio (GMP)...
June 12, 2017 Equity Premium, Strategic Allocation, Volatility Effects
Can investors predict the return of a stock from its relationship with the dispersion of returns across all stocks? In their May 2017 paper entitled “Building Efficient Portfolios Sensitive to Market Volatility”, Wei Liu, James Kolari and Jianhua...
June 8, 2017 Commodity Futures, Momentum Investing
Does average sign of recent returns work as well as recent cumulative return as a momentum metric? In their May 2017 paper entitled “Returns Signal Momentum”, Fotis Papailias, Jiadong Liu and Dimitrios Thomakos introduce and test a momentum...
June 7, 2017 Calendar Effects, Equity Premium
Are there opportunities to trade S&P 500 Index additions in the current market environment? In her May 2017 paper entitled “The Diminished Effect of Index Rebalances”, Konstantina Kappou examines returns for S&P 500 Index additions before and...
June 6, 2017 Fundamental Valuation
Which firm profitability metric best predicts stock returns? In their May 2017 paper entitled “Alternative Profitability Measures and Cross Section of Expected Stock Returns: International Evidence”, Nusret Cakici, Sris Chatterjee and Yi Tang compare abilities of 12 profitability...
June 5, 2017 Commodity Futures, Currency Trading, Strategic Allocation, Value Premium
Does a carry trade derived from roll yields of futures/forward contracts work within asset classes (undiversified) and across asset classes (iversified)? In his May 2017 paper entitled “Optimising Cross-Asset Carry”, Nick Baltas explores the profitability of cross-sectional...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
May 12, 2017 Bonds, Equity Premium, Strategic Allocation
Can investors improve retirement glide paths via judicious use of smart beta funds? In their March 2017 paper entitled “Life Cycle Investing and Smart Beta Strategies”, Bill Carson, Sara Shores and Nicholas Nefouse augment a conventional equities-bonds life...
May 11, 2017 Value Premium
What’s the best way to combine profitability and value in screening stocks? In their April 2017 paper entitled “The Magic Formula: Value, Profitability, and the Cross Section of Global Stock Returns”, Douglas Blackburn and Nusret Cakici...
May 10, 2017 Currency Trading, Momentum Investing
How well do time series (intrinsic) and cross-sectional (relative) momentum work for different types of currency exchange rates? In their April 2017 paper entitled “Momentum in Traditional and Cryptocurrencies Made Simple”, Janick Rohrbach, Silvan Suremann and Joerg Osterrieder...
May 9, 2017 Technical Trading
What makes trend-following tick? In the April 2017 version of his paper entitled “What Drives Trend-Following Profits?”, Adrian Zoicas-Ienciu investigates sources of trend-following profits in equity indexes and stocks. He focuses on daily trading signals for...