Size Effect

Do popular capitalization-based exchange-traded funds (ETF) offer a reliable way to exploit an equity size effect? To investigate, we look at the difference in returns (small minus big) between:

• iShares Russell 2000 Index (Smallcap) Index (IWM), and
• SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)

Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for these ETFs during May 2000 (limited by IWM) through March 2022, we find that: Keep Reading

Do widely accepted equity factor premiums exist in data older than generally employed in academic studies? In their November 2021 paper entitled “The Cross-Section of Stock Returns before 1926 (And Beyond)”, Guido Baltussen, Bart van Vliet and Pim van Vliet look for some of the most widely accepted factor premiums in a newly assembled sample of U.S. stocks spanning January 1866 through December 1926 (61 years of additional and independent data). Specifically, they look at: size as measured by market capitalization; value as measured by dividend yield (strongly associated with earnings during the sample period); stock price momentum from 12 months ago to one month ago; short-term (1-month) return reversal; and, risk as measured by market beta. They use only those stocks which trade frequently and apply liquidity/data quality filters. To measure factor premiums, they each month for each factor:

• Regress next-month stock return versus stock factor value and compute slopes of the relationship.
• Reform a value-weighted hedge portfolio that is long (short) stocks with high (low) expected returns based on factor values to measure: (1) average factor portfolio gross return; and, (2) gross factor (CAPM) alphas and betas based on regression of factor portfolio excess return versus market excess return.

They further investigate economic explanations of factor premiums and test machine learning methods found successful with recent data. Using monthly prices, dividends and market capitalizations for 1,488 stocks in the new database, they find that:

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“Beat the Market with Hot-Anomaly Switching?” concludes that “a trader who periodically switches to the hottest known anomaly based on a rolling window of past performance may be able to beat the market. Anomalies appear to have their own kind of momentum.” Does momentum therefore work for style-based exchange-traded funds (ETF)? To investigate, we apply a simple momentum strategy to the following six ETFs that cut across market capitalization (large, medium and small) and value versus growth:

iShares Russell 1000 Value Index (IWD) – large capitalization value stocks.
iShares Russell 1000 Growth Index (IWF) – large capitalization growth stocks.
iShares Russell Midcap Value Index (IWS) – mid-capitalization value stocks.
iShares Russell Midcap Growth Index (IWP) – mid-capitalization growth stocks.
iShares Russell 2000 Value Index (IWN) – small capitalization value stocks.
iShares Russell 2000 Growth Index (IWO) – small capitalization growth stocks.

We test a simple Top 1 strategy that allocates all funds each month to the one style ETF with the highest total return over a specified momentum ranking (lookback) interval. We focus on the baseline ranking interval from the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS), but test sensitivity of findings to ranking intervals ranging from one to 12 months. As benchmarks, we consider an equally weighted and monthly rebalanced combination of all six style ETFs (EW All), and buying and holding SPDR S&P 500 (SPY). As an enhancement we consider holding the Top 1 style ETF (3-month U.S. Treasury bills, T-bills) when the S&P 500 Index is above (below) its 10-month simple moving average at the end of the prior month (Top 1:SMA10), with a benchmark substituting SPY for Top 1 (SPY:SMA10). We employ the performance metrics used for SACEMS. Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for the six style ETFs and SPY, monthly levels of the S&P 500 Index and monthly yields for T-bills during August 2001 (limited by IWS and IWP) through October 2021, we find that:

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Trading Calendar presents full-year and monthly cumulative performance profiles for the overall stock market (S&P 500 Index) based on its average daily behavior. How much do the corresponding monthly behaviors of the various size and value/growth styles deviate from an overall equity market profile? To investigate, we consider the the following six exchange-traded funds (ETF) that cut across capitalization (large, medium and small) and value versus growth:

iShares Russell 1000 Value Index (IWD) – large capitalization value stocks.
iShares Russell 1000 Growth Index (IWF) – large capitalization growth stocks.
iShares Russell Midcap Value Index (IWS) – mid-capitalization value stocks.
iShares Russell Midcap Growth Index (IWP) – mid-capitalization growth stocks.
iShares Russell 2000 Value Index (IWN) – small capitalization value stocks.
iShares Russell 2000 Growth Index (IWO) – small capitalization growth stocks.

Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for the style ETFs and SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) during August 2001 through October 2021 (limited by data for IWS/IWP), we find that: Keep Reading

Does the Fama-French  5-factor model (market, size, book-to-market, profitability, investment) of stock returns work for stocks worldwide? In their May 2021 paper entitled “Size, Value, Profitability, and Investment Effects in International Stock Returns: Are They Really There?”, Nusret Cakici and Adam Zaremba test the performance of the 5-factor model in global developed markets. They consider big and small stocks separately. They consider four regions (North America, Europe, Japan and Asia-Pacific), as well as the global market. They lag all accounting data by six months and calculate returns in U.S. dollars. Using data in U.S. dollars for 65,000 stocks from 23 countries during December 1987 through March 2019 (with tests starting July 1990), they find that:

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How have value, quality, low-volatility and momentum equity factors, and combinations of these factors, performed in recent years. In their October 2020 paper entitled “Equity Factor Investing: Historical Perspective of Recent Performance”, Benoit Bellone, Thomas Heckel, François Soupé and Raul Leote de Carvalho review and put into context recent performances of these these factors/combinations as applied to medium-capitalization and large-capitalization World, U.S. and European stock universes. They consider both long-short and long-only factor portfolios and further investigate effects of (1) neutralizing beta and sector dependencies, (2) using multiple metrics for each factor and (3) including small stocks. Using firm accounting data and stock returns to support factor portfolio construction during 1995 through early 2020, they find that:

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The conventional size (market capitalization) premium is notoriously weak since discovery almost 40 years ago. Does this poor live track record mean it is useless to investors? In their September 2020 paper entitled “Settling the Size Matter”, David Blitz and Matthias Hanauer examine whether the size premium is exploitable as a standalone anomaly or in combination with other anomalies. They consider six versions of a size factor from prior research, as follows:

1. Adjusted for value – average of three small-cap stock portfolios minus average of three big-cap stock portfolios after sorting for book-to-market ratio.
2. Adjusted for value, investment and profitability – average of nine small-cap stock portfolios minus average of nine big-cap stock portfolios after separately sorting on the other three factors.
3. Adjusted for profitability – average of three small-cap stock portfolios minus average of three big-cap stock portfolios after sorting for profitability.
4. Adjusted for quality – average of three small-cap stock portfolios minus average of three big-cap stock portfolios after sorting for quality.
5. Adjusted for quality beta – average of three small-cap stock portfolios minus average of three big-cap stock portfolios after sorting for quality beta.
6. Adjusted for size, investment and return on equity – average of nine small-cap stock portfolios minus average of nine big-cap stock portfolios after separately sorting on the other three factors.

All factor portfolio segments are capitalization-weighted, and all returns are in U.S. dollars. They consider regressions (implying long-short implementations) and long-only sides of these factors. They also consider size factor definitions that do not overweight size inputs, as do those above. Using data required by these definitions for U.S. stocks since July 1963 (or January 1967 for some inputs) and for international stocks since July 1990 (or July 1993 for some inputs), all through December 2019, they find that: Keep Reading

Are widely accepted equity factor exposures available in fact to investors via “smart beta” mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF)? In their May 2020 paper entitled “Smart Beta Made Smart”, Andreas Johansson, Riccardo Sabbatucci and Andrea Tamoni test effectiveness of individual U.S. equity mutual funds and ETFs and combinations of these funds for exploiting several major equity risk factors (value, size, profitability and momentum). After assembling a sample of funds with names that indicate smart beta strategies, they iteratively (annually for size, value and profitability and daily for momentum):

1. Apply a double-regression to each fund to identify those that are actually “closet” market index funds.
2. Refine factor exposures of each true smart beta fund based on actual fund holdings.
3. Construct separately for institutional and retail investors tradable long-side (mutual funds and ETFs) and short-side (ETFs only) risk factors via value-weighted combinations of the 10 funds with the strongest exposures to each factor.

Using daily, monthly, and quarterly data for U.S. equity mutual funds and ETFs with (1) names indicating smart beta strategies, (2) at least one year of returns and (3)assets over $1 billion, data for their individual component U.S. stocks and specified factor returns during January 2003 through May 2019, they find that: Keep Reading

Are there equity styles that tend to perform relatively well during and after stock market crashes? In their April 2020 paper entitled “Equity Styles and the Spanish Flu”, Guido Baltussen and Pim van Vliet examine equity style returns around the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919 and five earlier deep U.S. stock market corrections (-20% to -25%) in 1907, 1903, 1893, 1884 and 1873. They construct three factors by:

1. Separating stocks into halves based on market capitalization.
2. Sorting the big half only into thirds based on dividend yield as a value proxy, 36-month past volatility or return from 12 months ago to one month ago. They focus on big stocks to avoid illiquidity concerns for the small half.
3. Forming long-only, capitalization-weighted factor portfolios that hold the third of big stocks with the highest dividends (HighDiv), lowest past volatilities (Lowvol) or highest past returns (Mom).

They also test a multi-style strategy combining Lowvol, Mom and HighDiv criteria (Lowvol+) and a size factor calculated as capitalization-weighted returns for the small group (Small). Using data for all listed U.S. stocks during the selected crashes, they find that: Keep Reading

In their July 2019 paper entitled “Momentum-Managed Equity Factors”, Volker Flögel, Christian Schlag and Claudia Zunft test exploitation of positive first-order autocorrelation (time series, absolute or intrinsic momentum) in monthly excess returns of seven equity factor portfolios:

1. Market (MKT).
2. Size – small minus big market capitalizations (SMB).
3. Value – high minus low book-to-market ratios (HML).
4. Momentum – winners minus losers (WML)
5. Investment – conservative minus aggressive (CMA).
6. Operating profitability – robust minus weak (RMW).
7. Volatility – stable minus volatile (SMV).

For factors 2-7, monthly returns derive from portfolios that are long (short) the value-weighted fifth of stocks with the highest (lowest) expected returns. In general, factor momentum timing means each month scaling investment in a factor from 0 to 1 according its how high its last-month excess return is relative to an inception-to-date window of past levels. They consider also two variations that smooth the simple timing signal to suppress the incremental trading that it drives. In assessing costs of this incremental trading, they assume (based on other papers) that realistic one-way trading frictions are in the range 0.1% to 0.5%. Using monthly data for a broad sample of U.S. common stocks during July 1963 through November 2014, they find that: Keep Reading