Investing Research Articles

A subscriber suggested review of a Follow the Leader (FTL) strategy that, in simplest form, each month holds iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) when prior-month SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) return is positive and iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) when prior-month SPY return is negative. To investigate, we run this simplest… Keep Reading

What happens after the stock market has a streak of up or down weeks? To check, we use the S&P 500 Index (SP500) as a proxy for the U.S. stock market and calculate average weekly returns and variabilities of these returns after streaks of positive or negative weekly returns. We do not include streaks within… Keep Reading

Can investors beat the market by exploiting preannounced (anti-value) changes to traditional capitalization-weighted indexes, generally comprised of additions with recent strong performance and deletions with recent weak performance? In their May 2022 paper entitled “The Avoidable Costs of Index Rebalancing”, Robert Arnott, Chris Brightman, Vitali Kalesnik and Lillian Wu examine ways to exploit any momentum… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 5/23/22 through 5/27/22. 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.

How do incentives distort research on financial markets, and how do incentivized researchers introduce the distortions? In his April 2022 paper entitled “The Pitfalls of Asset Management Research”, Campbell Harvey explores how economic incentives affect findings in both academic and practitioner research on financial markets, including evidence of distortion. Based on his 35 years as… Keep Reading

Should investors expect materially different returns for stocks accepted or excluded by institutional investors based on firm environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) policies and practices? In their April 2022 paper entitled “The Expected Returns of ESG Excluded Stocks. The Case of Exclusions from Norway’s Oil Fund”, Erika Berle, Wangwei He and Bernt Ødegaard analyze… Keep Reading

A subscriber asked which exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies make the best safe havens for the U.S. stock market as proxied by the S&P 500 Index. To investigate, we test 15 ETFs/funds as potential safe havens: Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLU) iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT) iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond (IEF)… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 5/16/22 through 5/20/22. 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 Buffett Indicator, the ratio of total stock market capitalization to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a useful indicator of future stock market performance internationally? In their March 2022 paper entitled “The Buffett Indicator: International Evidence”, Laurens Swinkels and Thomas Umlauft extend Buffett Indicator research from the U.S. to 14 international equity markets. Because the value… Keep Reading

Do intraday (open-to-close, trading-driven/technical) and overnight (close-to-open, news-driven) stock returns play different roles in signaling short-term reversal, intermediate-term momentum and long-term reversion? In their March 2022 paper entitled “What Drives Momentum and Reversal? Evidence from Day and Night Signals”, Yashar Barardehi, Vincent Bogousslavsky and Dmitriy Muravyev investigate by relating past cumulative daily, intraday and dividend-adjusted… Keep Reading