Strategic Allocation

Considering taxes, in what order should U.S. retirees consume different sources of retirement savings/income? In their August 2018 paper entitled “Constructing Tax Efficient Withdrawal Strategies for Retirees with Traditional 401(k)/IRAs, Roth 401(k)/IRAs, and Taxable Accounts”, James DiLellio and Daniel Ostrov describe and illustrate an algorithm that computes individualized tax-efficient consumption for U.S. retirees of:

• Tax-deferred retirement accounts [Traditional IRA/401(k)].
• Post-tax retirement accounts [Roth IRA/Roth 401(k)].
• Other taxable retirement accounts.
• Other sources of money subject to income tax, including: earned income, some pensions, annuities bought with pre-tax money, earnings from annuities bought with post-tax money and sometimes Social Security benefits.
• Other sources of money that do not affect tax rates of retirement accounts, such as: tax-free gifts, Health Savings Accounts, some pensions, principal from annuities bought with post-tax money and sometimes Social Security benefits.

Their model adapts to individual retiree circumstances and accommodates typical changes in tax policies (changes in marginal rates and number of brackets). For tractability, they make simplifying assumptions. The principal simplification is that  return on stocks, stock dividend yield, inflation rate, tax brackets and rates, other income sources and consumption rates are known each year (not random variables). When the goal is to optimize a bequest, inputs also include year of retiree death, marginal tax rate of the heir and rate the heir consumes inherited retirement accounts. They do not attempt to determine the optimal mix of  stocks and bonds/cash within retirement accounts (their deterministic model would prefer all stocks). Using illustrations of algorithm outputs based on varying input assumptions, they find that: Keep Reading

Are mean-variance (MV) strategies preferable for allocations to asset classes and equal-weight (EW) preferable for allocations to much noisier individual assets? In their May 2019 paper entitled “Horses for Courses: Mean-Variance for Asset Allocation and 1/N for Stock Selection”, Emmanouil Platanakis, Charles Sutcliffe and Xiaoxia Ye address this question. They focus on the Bayes-Stein shrinkage MV strategy, with 10 U.S. equity sector indexes as asset classes and the 10 stocks with the largest initial market capitalizations within each sector (except only three for telecommunications) as individual assets. The Bayes–Stein shrinkage approach dampens the typically large effects of return estimation errors on MV allocations. For estimation of MV return and return covariance inputs, they use an expanding (inception-to-date) 12-month historical window. They focus on one-month-ahead performances of portfolios formed in four ways via a 2-stage process:

1. MV-EW, which uses MV to determine sector allocations and EW to determine stock allocations within sectors.
2. EW-EW, which uses EW for both deteriminations.
3. EW-MV, which uses EW to determine sector allocations and MV to determine stock allocations within sectors.
4. MV-MV, which uses MV for both deteriminations.

They consider four net performance metrics: annualized certainty equivalent return (CER) gain for moderately risk-averse investors; annualized Sharpe ratio (reward for risk); Omega ratio (average gain to average loss); and, Dowd ratio (reward for value at risk). They assume constant trading frictions of 0.5% of value traded. They perform robustness tests for U.S. data by using alternative MV strategies, different parameter settings and simulations. They perform a global robustness test using value-weighted equity indexes for UK, U.S., Germany, Switzerland, France, Canada and Brazil as asset classes and the 10 stocks with the largest initial market capitalizations within each index as individual assets (all in U.S. dollars). Using monthly total returns for asset classes and individual assets as specified and 1-month U.S. Treasury bill yield as the risk-free rate during January 1994 through August 2017, they find that: Keep Reading

We have updated monthly Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) winners and associated performance data at “Momentum Strategy”. We have updated monthly Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) allocations and associated performance data at “Value Strategy”. We have also updated performance data for the “Combined Value-Momentum Strategy”.

We have updated the “Trading Calendar” to incorporate data for May 2019.

The home page, “Momentum Strategy” and “Value Strategy” now show preliminary Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) and Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) positions for June 2019. For SACEMS, the top three positions are unlikely to change by the close. For SACEVS, allocations are unlikely to change.

For investors embracing the concept of portfolios based on factor premiums (rather than asset classes), what is the best factor allocation approach? In their March 2019 paper entitled “Factor-Based Allocation: Is There a Superior Strategy?”, Hubert Dichtl, Wolfgang Drobetz and Viktoria-Sophie Wendt search for the best way of combining factors in a portfolio after accounting for bias introduced from snooping many alternative allocation strategies. They consider the following 10 factors (mostly long-short) suitable for a U.S. institutional investor constrained to global equity and fixed income securities: equity, value, size, momentum, quality, low-volatility, term, real rates, credit and high-yield. They construct factors using associated published indexes denominated in U.S. dollars, with 1-month U.S. Treasury bill (T-bill) yield as the risk-free rate. They consider 17 factor allocation strategies: equal weight, minimum variance, equal risk, maximum diversification, volatility timing, reward-to-risk timing, mean-variance optimization without and with shrinkage, Black-Litterman and eight combinations of these strategies. Their test portfolio holds a 100% position in cash and a fully hedged (long-short, or zero net investment) factor portfolio, subject to 0.5% trading frictions on portfolio turnover. Using monthly data required to construct factors and T-bill yield during January 2001 though December 2018, with the first 60 months set aside to estimate strategy inputs, they find that:

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A subscriber asked whether more granularity in international equity choices for the “Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy” (SACEMS), as considered by Decision Moose, would improve performance. To investigate, we replace the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM) and the iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA) with four regional international equity exchange-traded funds (ETF). The universe of assets becomes:

PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)
iShares MSCI Pacific ex Japan (EPP)
iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ)
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
iShares Europe (IEV)
iShares Latin America 40 (ILF)
iShares Russell 1000 Index (IWB)
iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM)
iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
3-month Treasury bills (Cash)

We compare original (SACEMS Base) and modified (SACEMS Granular), each month picking winners from their respective sets of ETFs based on total returns over a fixed lookback interval. We focus on gross compound annual growth rate (CAGR), gross maximum drawdown (MaxDD) and rough gross annual Sharpe ratio (average annual return divided by standard deviation of annual returns) as key performance statistics for the Top 1, equally weighted (EW) Top 2 and EW Top 3 portfolios of monthly winners. Using daily and monthly total (dividend-adjusted) returns for the specified assets during February 2006 (limited by DBC) through April 2019, we find that: Keep Reading

Homes typically represent a substantial fraction of investor wealth. Are there reliable relationships between U.S. home prices and the U.S. stock market? For example, does a rising stock market stimulate home prices? Do falling home prices point to offsetting liquidation of equity positions. Do homes effectively diversify equity holdings? Using:

• Monthly levels of the non-seasonally adjusted S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index (Home Price Index) during January 1987 through January 2019 (32 years),
• Annual median sales prices for existing homes pieced from from RealEstateABC.com, National Association of Realtors and Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis during 1968 through 2018 (51 years),
• Annual median sales prices for new homes during 1963 through 2018 (56 years), and contemporaneous levels of the S&P 500 Index , we find that:

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How should investors manage their portfolios to withstand market crashes. In his March 2019 paper entitled “Managing the Downside of Active and Passive Strategies: Convexity and Fragilities”, Raphael Douady discusses how to construct an “antifragile” portfolio given that most equity market risk is not readily observable. He describes ways to monitor the probability of a new crisis. Based on in-depth analysis of market behaviors during past speculative bubbles and other crises, he concludes that:

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A subscriber requested comparison of four variations of an “Ivy 5” asset class allocation strategy, as follows:

1. Ivy 5 EW: Assign equal weight (EW), meaning 20%, to each of the five positions and rebalance annually.
2. Ivy 5 EW + SMA10: Same as Ivy 5 EW, but take to cash any position for which the asset is below its 10-month simple moving average (SMA10).
3. Ivy 5 Volatility Cap: Allocate to each position a percentage up to 20% such that the position has an expected annualized volatility of no more than 10% based on daily volatility over the past month, recalculated monthly. If under 20%, allocate the balance of the position to cash.
4. Ivy 5 Volatility Cap + SMA10: Same as Ivy 5 Volatility Cap, but take completely to cash any position for which the asset is below its SMA10.

To perform the tests, we employ the following five asset class proxies:

iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond (IEF)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA)
PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)

We consider monthly performance statistics, annual performance statistics, and full-sample compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and maximum drawdown (MaxDD). The DBC series in combination with the SMA10 rule are limiting with respect to sample start date and the first return calculations. Using daily and monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for the five asset class proxies and the yield on U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills) as the return on cash during February 2006 through March 2019, we find that: Keep Reading

Does a simple relative momentum strategy applied to tradable asset class proxies produce attractive results? To investigate, we test a simple strategy on the following eight asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF), plus cash:

PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM)
iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA)
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
3-month Treasury bills (Cash)

This set of ETFs offers: (1) opportunities to capture momentum across global developed and emerging equity markets, large and small U.S. equities and bonds and commodities; (2) gold and cash as safe havens; (3) histories long enough for backtesting across multiple market environments; and, (4) simplicity of computation and recognition of the trade-off between number of ETFs and trading frictions. We rank ETFs based on total (dividend-adjusted) returns over past (lookback) intervals of one to 12 months. We consider portfolios of past ETF winners based on Top 1 and on equally weighted (EW) Top 2 through Top 5. We consider as benchmarks: an equally weighted portfolio of all ETFs, rebalanced monthly (EW All); buying and holding SPY (SPY); and, holding SPY when the S&P 500 Index is above its 10-month simple moving average (SMA10) and Cash when the index is below its SMA10 (SPY:SMA10). Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for the asset class proxies and the yield for Cash during February 2006 (when all ETFs are first available) through March 2019, we find that: Keep Reading