November 21, 2025 - Calendar Effects
Does the Thanksgiving holiday, a time of families celebrating plenty, give U.S. stock investors a sense of optimism that translates into stock returns? To investigate, we analyze the historical behavior of the S&P 500 Index during the three trading days before and the three trading days after the holiday. Using daily closing levels of the… Keep Reading
November 20, 2025 - Equity Premium, Investing Expertise
How do exchange-traded-funds (ETF) that employ artificial intelligence (AI) to pick assets perform? To investigate, we consider ten such ETFs, eight of which are currently available: Amplify AI Powered Equity ETF (AIEQ) – picks U.S. stocks based on a quantitative model that runs on the IBM Watson platform. QRAFT AI-Enhanced U.S. Large Cap ETF (QRFT)… Keep Reading
November 19, 2025 - Big Ideas
A subscriber suggested review of The Book of Alternative Data: A Guide for Investors, Traders, and Risk Managers , a 2020 book by Alexander Denev and Saeed Amen. In this book, the authors address “the ever growing importance of data, and in particular, alternative data. We live in a world, which is rich with data,… Keep Reading
November 18, 2025 - Investing Expertise, Miscellaneous
A subscriber asked about the relationship between Berkshire Hathaway cash position and S&P 500 Index returns. To investigate, we: Located annual “Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) – Cash on Hand” data as a baseline cash pile. Asked Grok to construct a table showing annual Berkshire Hathaway cash plus U.S. Treasury bills (T-bills), annual total assets and annual… Keep Reading
November 17, 2025 - Investing Expertise, Momentum Investing
Can insights inferred from real-time financial news by large language models (LLM) such as ChatGPT 4.0 mini enhance a conventional stock momentum strategy? In their October 2025 paper entitled “ChatGPT in Systematic Investing – Enhancing Risk-Adjusted Returns with LLMs”, Nikolas Anic, Andrea Barbon, Ralf Seiz and Carlo Zarattini investigate whether ChatGPT can improve a conventional… Keep Reading
November 14, 2025 - Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 11/10/25 through 11/14/25. 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.
November 14, 2025 - Fundamental Valuation, Momentum Investing
A subscriber asked about the performance of a 50-50 combination of a basket of momentum stock exchange-traded funds (ETF) and a basket of quality stock ETFs, specifically with comparison to a 50-50 combination of the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) and the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS). To investigate, we employ… Keep Reading
November 13, 2025 - Fundamental Valuation
Are stock quality strategies, as implemented by exchange-traded funds (ETF), attractive? To investigate, we consider six ETFs, all currently available (from oldest to youngest): Invesco S&P 500 Quality ETF (SPHQ) – seeks to track performance of S&P 500 stocks with the highest quality scores based on firm return on equity, accruals ratio and financial leverage… Keep Reading
November 12, 2025 - Equity Premium, Momentum Investing
Are stock and sector momentum strategies, as implemented by exchange-traded funds (ETF), attractive? To investigate, we consider nine momentum-oriented equity ETFs, all currently available, in order of longest to shortest available histories: Invesco Dorsey Wright Momentum ETF (PDP) – invests at least 90% of assets in approximately 100 U.S. common stocks per a proprietary methodology… Keep Reading
November 11, 2025 - Fundamental Valuation
Does P/E10 (or Cyclically Adjusted Price-Earnings ratio, CAPE) usefully predict U.S. stock market returns? Per Robert Shiller’s data, P/E10 is inflation-adjusted S&P Composite Index level divided by average monthly inflation-adjusted 12-month trailing earnings of index companies over the last ten years. To investigate its usefulness, we consider in-sample regression/ranking tests and out-of-sample cumulative performance tests. Using monthly values of… Keep Reading