Equity Premium
Governments are largely insulated from market forces. Companies are not. Investments in stocks therefore carry substantial risk in comparison with holdings of government bonds, notes or bills. The marketplace presumably rewards risk with extra return. How much of a return premium should investors in equities expect? These blog entries examine the equity risk premium as a return benchmark for equity investors.
March 26, 2025 - Bonds, Economic Indicators, Equity Premium, Strategic Allocation
The “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) seeks diversification across a small set of asset class exchanged-traded funds (ETF), plus a monthly tactical edge from potential undervaluation of three risk premiums:
- Term – monthly difference between the 10-year Constant Maturity U.S. Treasury note (T-note) yield and the 3-month Constant Maturity U.S. Treasury bill (T-bill) yield.
- Credit – monthly difference between the Moody’s Seasoned Baa Corporate Bonds yield and the T-note yield.
- Equity – monthly difference between S&P 500 operating earnings yield and the T-note yield.
Premium valuations are relative to historical averages. How might this strategy react to changes in the Effective Federal Funds Rate (EFFR)? Using end-of-month values of the three risk premiums, EFFR, total 12-month U.S. inflation and core 12-month U.S. inflation during March 1989 (limited by availability of operating earnings data) through February 2025, we find that: Keep Reading
March 21, 2025 - Equity Options, Equity Premium
A buffer exchange-traded fund (ETF) is designed to limit losses while capping gains over a specific period, usually one year, generally by combining a position in put and call options on a stock index with an ETF that tracks that index. Laddered buffer ETFs smooth this approach by holding a rolling series of buffer ETFs with staggered expiration dates, thereby imposing two layers of fund costs. How do laddered buffer ETFs perform? To investigate, we consider five of the largest such ETFs, all currently available, as follows:
We use SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) as the benchmark for the first four and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) for the last. We focus on monthly return statistics, along with compound annual growth rates (CAGR) and maximum drawdowns (MaxDD). Using monthly total returns for the five laddered buffer ETFs, SPY and QQQ as available through February 2025, we find that:
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March 13, 2025 - Equity Premium, Fundamental Valuation
Are all stocks except U.S. growth cheap? In his brief February 2025 paper entitled “Decomposing Equity Returns: Earnings Growth vs. Multiple Expansion”, David Blitz decomposes equity returns of different global equity markets and styles (size, low-volatility, value) into dividend yield, earnings growth and multiple expansion. The decomposition consists of:
- Subtracting price return from total return to derive the contribution from dividends.
- Calculating the part of price return due to earnings growth.
- Attributing the part of price return not due to earnings growth to multiple expansion/contraction based on change in price-to-earnings ratio (P/E).
The breakdown exposes different reasons for underperformance of markets and styles relative to the U.S. equity market. Using the specified data for 2015 through 2024, he finds that: Keep Reading
March 6, 2025 - Bonds, Commodity Futures, Economic Indicators, Equity Premium, Gold, Real Estate
How do returns of different asset classes recently interact with inflation as measured by monthly change in the not seasonally adjusted, all-items consumer price index (CPI) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics? To investigate, we look at lead-lag relationships between change in CPI and returns for each of the following 10 exchange-traded fund (ETF) asset class proxies:
- Equities:
- SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)
- iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM)
- iShares MSCI EAFE Index (EFA)
- iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM)
- Bonds:
- iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT)
- iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD)
- iShares JPMorgan Emerging Markets Bond Fund (EMB)
- Real assets:
- Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ)
- SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)
- Invesco DB Commodity Index Tracking (DBC)
Using monthly total CPI values and monthly dividend-adjusted prices for the 10 specified ETFs during December 2007 (limited by EMB) through January 2025, we find that: Keep Reading
March 5, 2025 - Equity Premium
A subscriber requested measurement of a “premium” associated with U.S. stocks relative to those of other developed markets by looking at the difference in returns between the following two exchange-traded funds (ETF):
Using monthly dividend-adjusted closing prices for these ETFs during August 2001 (limited by EFA) through January 2025, we find that: Keep Reading
March 3, 2025 - Equity Premium, Individual Gurus, Investing Expertise
Does finance professor David Kass, who presents annual lists of stock picks on Seeking Alpha, make good selections? To investigate, we consider his picks of “10 Stocks for 2020”, “16 Stocks For 2021”, “12 Stocks For 2022”, “10 Stocks For 2023” and “10 Stocks For 2024”. For each year and each stock, we compute total (dividend-adjusted) return. For each year, we then compare the average (equal-weighted) total return for a David Kass portfolio to that of SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY). Using dividend-adjusted returns from Yahoo!Finance for SPY and most stock picks and returns from Barchart.com and Investing.com for three picks during their selection years, we find that: Keep Reading
February 25, 2025 - Equity Premium, Fundamental Valuation
Do stock-by-stock return forecasts from deep learning produce an exploitable aggregate equity risk premium (ERP) forecast? In the January 2025 revision of their paper entitled “The Aggregated Equity Risk Premium”, Vitor Azevedo, Christoph Riedersberger and Mihail Velikov predict ERP by first applying deep learning to predict returns for individual U.S. stocks and then aggregating these returns at the market level. The firm-level forecasts come from combined outputs of several neural networks of varying complexity applied to 290 firm-level characteristics, 14 U.S. economic variables and 49 industry classification indicators. They iterate these forecasts annually using an expanding training window and a rolling six-year validation window. For comparison, they consider some conventional ERP forecasting approaches. They quantify the economic value of aggregate ERP forecasts via a stock market timing strategy that each month allocates to stocks or U.S. Treasury bills with a 50% leverage limit and conservative 0.5% portfolio rebalancing frictions. Using the specified inputs during March 1957 through December 2021 (with out-of-sample testing commencing January 2000), they find that:
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January 28, 2025 - Equity Premium
How do exchange-traded-funds (ETF) focused on development of robotics-artificial intelligence (AI), an arguably hot area of technology, perform? To investigate, we consider eight of the largest such ETFs, all currently available, as follows:
We use Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) as a benchmark, assuming investors look at robotics-AI stocks as a way to beat other technology stocks. We focus on monthly return statistics, along with compound annual growth rates (CAGR) and maximum drawdowns (MaxDD). Using monthly total returns for the eight robotics-AI ETFs and QQQ as available through December 2024, we find that: Keep Reading
January 21, 2025 - Equity Premium, Political Indicators
Past research relating U.S. stock market returns to the party holding the Presidency mostly concludes that Democratic presidents are better for the stock market than Republican presidents. However, Presidents share power conferred by the electorate with Congress. Does historical data confirm that Democratic control of Congress is also better for stock market returns than Republican control of Congress? Is control of the smaller Senate more decisive than control of the House of Representatives? To check, we relate annual U.S. stock market (S&P 500 Index) returns to various combinations of party control of the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Using party in power data and annual levels of the S&P 500 Index for December 1927 through December 2024 (97 years), we find that: Keep Reading
December 19, 2024 - Bonds, Equity Premium
How should investors think about research using long-run financial data? In their October 2024 paper entitled “Long-Run Asset Returns”, David Chambers, Elroy Dimson, Antti Ilmanen and Paul Rintamäki survey the body of evidence on historical return premiums for stocks, bonds, real estate and commodities over the current and previous two centuries. They discuss benefits and pitfalls of long-run datasets and make suggestions on best practices. They also compare premium estimates from alternative data compilers. Based on the body of long-run asset class return research, they conclude that:
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