Strategic Allocation

Is there a “trick” to good results for risk parity backtests? In their April 2014 brief research paper entitled “The Risks of Risk Parity”, the Brandes Institute examines the sustainability of a critical performance driver for the risk parity asset allocation approach. This approach weights asset classes such that their expected contributions to overall portfolio risk (volatility) are equal, generally by shifting conventional portfolio weights substantially from equities to bonds. Using hypothetical portfolio performance during 1994 through 2013 and bond yield data during 1871 through 2013, they find that: Keep Reading

Robert Carver introduces his 2015 book, Systematic Trading: A Unique New Method for Designing Trading and Investing Systems, by stating that: “I don’t believe there is any magic system that will automatically make you huge profits, and you should be wary of anyone who says otherwise, especially if they want to sell it to you. Instead, success in systematic trading is mostly down to avoiding common mistakes such as over complicating your system, being too optimistic about likely returns, taking excessive risks, and trading too often. I will help you avoid these errors. This won’t guarantee returns, but it will make failure less likely. My framework…can be adapted to meet your needs. …Each element of the framework has been carefully designed… I’ll explain the available options, which I prefer, and why.” Based on his experience as a trader/portfolio manager and specific research, he concludes that: Keep Reading

We have made three changes to the “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) based on results of  robustness tests and subscriber comments:

1. To employ fresher data, we decrease the SACEVS S&P 500 Index level and bond/bill yield measurement interval from quarterly to monthly. S&P 500 Index operating earnings updates are still quarterly.
2. To employ fresher data, we use end-of-measurement interval (end-of-month) bond/bill yields rather than average yields during the measurement interval.
3. To account for a lag in availability of bill/bond yield data, we delay signal execution by one trading day.

These changes are logical, but introduce some additional noise. They result in somewhat higher risk-adjusted performance for SACEVS, at the expense of some additional trading. Effects on the Weighted version of the strategy are greater than those on the Best Value version.

We are updating “Value Strategy” and some related tests accordingly.

Which is better, sector-based or factor-based stock investing? In their June 2015 paper entitled “Factor-Based v. Industry-Based Asset Allocation: The Contest”, Marie Briere and Ariane Szafarz compare the attractiveness of sector-based and factor-based U.S. stock allocations. From Kenneth French’s data library, they extract return series for 10 sectors and five factors (size, value, profitability, investment and momentum). They expand the factor set to 10 by using long and short portfolios for each factor. They consider three trials:

1. Which group, sectors or factors, yields the dominantly more attractive efficient frontier?
2. Which group offers the clearly superior gross Jensen’s alphas across single-sector/factor portfolios and portfolios diversified across sectors or factors based on maximizing estimated Sharpe ratio, minimizing estimated volatility or equal weighting?
3. Do portfolios diversified across sectors or factors (based on maximizing estimated Sharpe ratio, minimizing estimated volatility or equal weighting) offer the best gross Sharpe ratios?

For each trial, they test long-only and long-short factor portfolios. Also for each trial, they test the overall sample, economic recession and expansion subsamples (per the National Bureau of Economic Research) and bull and bear market subsamples (per Forbes magazine). Using monthly U.S. stock market factor and sector returns from Kenneth French’s library spanning July 1963 through November 2014, they find that: Keep Reading

“Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) tests a simple relative value strategy that each quarter allocates funds to one or more of the following three asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF), plus cash, based on degree of undervaluation of measures of the term risk, credit risk and equity risk premiums:

3-month Treasury bills (Cash)
iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond (IEF)
iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)

One version of SACEVS (Best Value) picks the most undervalued premium. Another (Weighted) weights all undervalued premiums according to degree of undervaluation. Premium calculations and SACEVS portfolio allocations derive from quarterly average yields for 3-month Constant Maturity U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills), 10-year Constant Maturity U.S. Treasury notes (T-notes) and Moody’s Seasoned Baa Corporate Bonds (Baa). A subscriber asked whether fresh end-of-quarter yields might work better than quarterly average yields. Using monthly S&P 500 Index levels, quarterly S&P 500 earnings and daily T-note, T-bill and Baa yields during March 1989 through March 2015 (limited by availability of earnings data), and quarterly dividend-adjusted closing prices for the above three asset class ETFs during September 2002 through March 2015 (154 months, limited by availability of IEF and LQD), we find that: Keep Reading

“Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) tests a simple relative value strategy that each quarter allocates funds to one or more of the following three asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF), plus cash, based on degree of undervaluation of measures of the term risk, credit risk and equity risk premiums:

3-month Treasury bills (Cash)
iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond (IEF)
iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD)
SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)

One version of SACEVS (Best Value) picks the most undervalued premium. Another (Weighted) weights all undervalued premiums according to degree of undervaluation. Premium calculations and SACEVS portfolio allocations are quarterly per the arrival rate of new corporate earnings information. The principal benchmark is a quarterly rebalanced portfolio of 60% SPY and 40% IEF. A subscriber asked whether monthly SACEVS updates outperform quarterly updates. Using monthly S&P 500 Index levels, quarterly S&P 500 earnings and monthly average yields for 3-month Constant Maturity U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills), 10-year Constant Maturity U.S. Treasury notes (T-notes) and Moody’s Seasoned Baa Corporate Bonds during March 1989 through March 2015 (limited by availability of earnings data), and monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for the above three asset class ETFs during September 2002 through March 2015 (154 months, limited by availability of IEF and LQD), we find that: Keep Reading

Is intermediate-term asset class momentum a useful way to generate inputs (return, volatility and correlation forecasts) for a multi-class mean-variance optimization strategy? In their May 2015 paper entitled “Momentum and Markowitz: a Golden Combination”, Wouter Keller, Adam Butler and Ilya Kipnis test the effectiveness of using intermediate-term lookback intervals (1 to 12 months) to generate monthly long-only mean-variance optimized portfolios. They argue that such lookback intervals are more likely than conventional long (multi-year) intervals to provide forecasts that persist during one-month portfolio holding intervals. They name their approach Classical Asset Allocation (CAA). To test CAA, in addition to adopting the practical long-only constraint, they further:

1. Select from the efficient frontier a target annualized portfolio volatility of either 10% (aggressive) or 5% (conservative).
2. Forecast asset returns by averaging results from lookback intervals of 1, 3, 6 and 12 months.
3. Forecast covariances (volatility-correlation relationships) from a 12-month lookback interval.
4. Cap portfolio weights for risky assets at 25%, but do not cap weights for 3-month U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills) and 10-year U.S. Treasury notes (T-notes).
5. Consider three universes of 8, 16 and 39 asset class proxies.
6. Use equal weighting (EW) of all assets in a universe as a benchmark.

They introduce an optimizer program to streamline calculation of optimal portfolio weights. Using monthly total returns for 39 indexes spanning multiple asset classes as available during January 1914 through December 2014, they find that: Keep Reading

How sensitive is the performance of the “Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy” to selecting ranks other than winners and to choosing a momentum ranking interval other than five months? This strategy each month ranks the following eight asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF), plus cash, on past return and rotates to the strongest class:

PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM)
iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA)
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
iShares Russell 1000 Index (IWB)
iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM)
SPDR Dow Jones REIT (RWR)
iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
3-month Treasury bills (Cash)

Available data are so limited that sensitivity test results may mislead. With that reservation, we perform two robustness/sensitivity tests: (1) comparison of returns for all nine ranks of winner through loser based on a ranking interval of five months and a holding interval of one month (5-1); and, (2) comparison of winner returns for ranking intervals ranging from one to 12 months (1-1 through 12-1) and for a six-month lagged six-month ranking interval (12:7-1) per “Isolating the Decisive Momentum (Echo?)”, all with one-month holding intervals. Using monthly adjusted closing prices for the asset class proxies and the yield for Cash over the period July 2002 (or inception if not available then) through April 2014 (154 months), we find that: Keep Reading

Do simple stock market valuation ratios work for tactical allocation? In his April 2015 paper entitled “Multiples, Forecasting, and Asset Allocation”, Javier Estrada investigates whether investors can outperform a 60-40 stocks-bonds benchmark portfolio via tactical strategies based on one of three simple stock market valuation ratios: (1) dividend-price ratio (D/P); (2) price-earnings ratio (P/E); or, (3) cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio (CAPE, or P/E10). The valuation‐based strategies take aggressive (conservative) stances when stocks are cheap (expensive) via combinations of the following rules:

• Designate stocks as cheap (expensive) when a valuation ratio is below (above) its inception-to-date mean by one standard deviation (1SD) or two standard deviations (2SD).
• Use 60-40 stocks-bonds allocations when stocks are not cheap or expensive. When stocks are cheap (expensive), shift toward stocks (bonds) by 20% to 80-20 (40-60) or by 30% to 90-10 (30-70). 
• Rebalance either annually or monthly.

For the benchmark portfolio and the valuation-based portfolios when in 60-40 stance, rebalancing occurs only when the stock allocation drifts below 55% or above 65%. To accrue at least 20 years of data for initial valuations, strategy performance measurements span 1920 through 2014 (95 years). Calculations lag dividends and earnings by three months to ensure real-time availability. Testing ignores trading frictions and tax implications. Using monthly S&P 500 Index total returns and the yield on 90-day U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills) during September 1899 through December 2014, he finds that: Keep Reading

Do multi-class mutual funds exhibit good asset class allocation timing? In their April 2015 paper entitled “Multi-Asset Class Mutual Funds: Can They Time the Market? Evidence from the US, UK and Canada”, Andrew Clare, Niall O’Sullivan, Meadhbh Sherman and Steve Thomas investigate whether mutual fund managers time allocations across asset classes skillfully. They focus on three asset classes: equities, government bonds and corporate bonds. They apply two alternative methodologies: (1) returns-based, relating each asset class beta for a fund to next-month return for that class; and, (2) holdings-based, relating changes in asset class weights within a fund to next-month class returns. Using monthly returns and holdings for 617 U.S., UK and Canadian multi-asset class mutual funds during 2000 through 2012, they find that:

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