Do lottery traders create the low-volatility (betting-against-beta) effect by overpricing high-beta stocks? In the December 2014 version of their paper entitled “Betting against Beta or Demand for Lottery”, Turan Bali, Stephen Brown, Scott Murray and...
Is the reward for holding risky bonds material and distinct from the reward for holding stocks and the reward for holding longer term bonds? In their February 2015 paper entitled “Credit Risk Premium: Its Existence and Implications for...
Is there a more precise way to measure the premium available to investors willing to bear volatility risk than overall return variance? In their January 2015 paper entitled “Downside Variance Risk Premium”, Bruno Feunou, Mohammad Jahan-Parvar...
Are short sellers on average well-informed, such that aggregate equity short interest usefully predicts stock market returns? In the January 2015 draft of their paper entitled “Short Interest and Aggregate Stock Returns”, David Rapach, Matthew Ringgenberg and Guofu Zhou...
A subscriber requested corroboration of the findings in “Simple Debt Class Mutual Fund Momentum Strategy” with a universe restricted to a family of bond funds (such as Fidelity) to enable low-cost fund switching. We therefore apply the strategy to...
Are stock return anomalies strongest when investor sentiment is highest or liquidity lowest? In the January 2015 draft version of his paper entitled “What Explains the Dynamics of 100 Anomalies?”, Heiko Jacobs addresses these questions. He...
Which method of relative currency valuation works best for currency trading? In their February 2015 paper entitled “Currency Value Strategies”, Ahmad Raza, Ben Marshall and Nuttawat Visaltanachoti run a horse race of four currency value strategies: Real Exchange...
Do changes in hedge fund holdings and short interest in a stock together predict its returns? In their January 2015 paper entitled “Short Selling Meets Hedge Fund 13F: An Anatomy of Informed Demand”, Yawen Jiao, Massimo Massa and Hong Zhang...
Do stock return anomalies exhibit January and month-of-quarter (first, second or third, excluding January) effects? In his February 2015 paper entitled “Seasonalities in Anomalies”, Vincent Bogousslavsky investigates whether the following 11 widely cited U.S. stock return anomalies...
Does the average mutual fund investor accrue the average fund performance, or do investor timing practices alter the equation? In their July 2014 paper entitled “Timing Poorly: A Guide to Generating Poor Returns While Investing in...
Does optimal asset allocation, as measured by Sharpe ratio, depend on investment horizon? In their January 2015 paper entitled “Optimal Asset Allocation Across Investment Horizons”, Ronald Best, Charles Hodges and James Yoder explore the optimal (highest Sharpe ratio) mix of...
A reader suggested looking at Rydex asset ratios as stock market sentiment indicators. The reasoning for these indicators is that a high (low) ratio of assets in bullish funds to assets in bearish funds indicates...
What is the best mix of stocks and bonds to hold during retirement worldwide? In his January 2015 paper entitled “The Retirement Glidepath: An International Perspective”, Javier Estrada compares outcomes for different stocks-bonds allocation strategies during retirement from a global...
Given the conflicting evidence about the import of the size effect, is there a way investors can extract a reliable premium from small stocks? In their January 2015 draft paper entitled “Size Matters, If You Control Your...
A subscriber inquired whether the “Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy” (SACEMS) is a good diversifier of the U.S. stock market. This strategy allocates funds at the end of each month to the one (Top...
Is use of long-term stock index call options effective for those approaching retirement with desires of limiting exposure to crashes without sacrificing all benefit of equity exposure? In his January 2015 paper entitled “Individuals Approaching Retirement...
Does adding profitability and asset growth (investment) factors improve the performance of the widely used Fama-French three-factor (market, size, book-to-market) model of stock returns? In the September 2014 version of their paper entitled “A Five-Factor...
Are overnight trading motivations systematically different from those that drive trading during normal trading hours? In the January 2015 version of their paper entitled “Tug of War: Overnight Versus Intraday Expected Returns”, flagged by a subscriber,...
How much can the (in)accuracy of retirement portfolio modeling assumptions affect conclusions about the safety of retirement income? In their December 2014 paper entitled “How Risky is Your Retirement Income Risk Model?”, Patrick Collins, Huy Lam and Josh...
In reference to “Optimal Monthly Cycle for Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy?”, a subscriber asked about an optimal monthly cycle for the “Simple Debt Class Mutual Fund Momentum Strategy”. This latter strategy each month allocates...
Is stock pairs trading particularly successful under predictable conditions? In their December 2014 paper entitled “On the Determinants of Pairs Trading Profitability”, Heiko Jacobs and Martin Weber present a large-scale analysis of pairs trading, evaluating the effects on...
We have corrected the Momentum Strategy winners list for January 2015 (to be held during February 2015). The third place winner was incorrect due to omission of a dividend.
Can investors usefully apply stock quality metrics to entire country stock markets? In his December 2014 paper entitled “Country Selection Strategies Based on Quality”, Adam Zaremba investigates whether quality metrics effectively predict country stock market index performance. He...
Does the term structure of the the option-implied expected volatility of the S&P 500 Index (VIX, normally measured at a one-month horizon) predict future returns of variance assets such as variance swaps, VIX futures and S&P...
Do country stock markets act like individual stocks with respect to return for risk taken? In his December 2014 paper entitled “Is There a Low-Risk Anomaly Across Countries?”, Adam Zaremba relates country stock market performance to four market risk...