Investing Research Articles

Do narrow exchange-traded funds (ETF), such as specific technology-focused funds, exhibit a predictable lifecycle of fund inflows that inflate prices of holdings followed by fund outflows that depress prices of holdings? In their May 2024 paper entitled “Ponzi Funds”, Philippe van der Beck, Jean-Philippe Bouchaud and Dario Villamaina decompose ETF returns into price pressure (self-inflated)… Keep Reading

“Simple Sector ETF Momentum Strategy” investigates performances of simple momentum trading strategies for the following nine sector exchange-traded funds (ETF) executed with Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts (SPDR): Materials Select Sector SPDR (XLB) Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) Industrial Select Sector SPDR (XLI) Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK) Consumer Staples… Keep Reading

A subscriber suggested review of the February 2017 paper “Bubbles for Fama”, in which Robin Greenwood, Andrei Shleifer and Yang You assess Eugene Fama’s claim that stock prices do not exhibit bubbles. They define a bubble candidate as a value-weighted U.S. industry or international sector that rises over 100% in both raw and net of… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/15/24 through 7/19/24. 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.

A subscriber asked for confirmation that the strategy described at “Meb Faber’s 12-Month High Switch” (the strategy) is attractive. This strategy at each monthly close: Calculates the 12-month high for: SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (EFA), Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund ETF Shares (VNQ), SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and Invesco… Keep Reading

Does adding an exchange-traded fund (ETF) or note (ETN) to the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) boost performance via consideration of more trending/diversifying options? To investigate, we add the following 25 ETF/ETN asset class proxies one at a time to the base set and measure effects on the Top 1, equally weighted (EW)… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/8/24 through 7/12/24. 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.

Are all of the potentially trending/diversifying asset class proxies used in the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) necessary? Might one or more of them actually be harmful to performance? To investigate, we each month rank the nine SACEMS assets based on past return with one excluded (nine separate test series) and reform the… Keep Reading

“Stock Size and Excess Stock Portfolio Growth” finds that an equal-weighted portfolio of the (each day) 1,000 largest U.S. stocks beats its market capitalization-weighted counterpart by about 2% per year. However, the underlying research does not account for portfolio rebalancing costs and may not be representative of other stock universes. Do exchange-traded funds (ETF) that… Keep Reading

What happens if we extend the “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) with a utilities risk premium, derived from the yield on Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLU)? To investigate, we apply the SACEVS methodology to the following asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF), plus cash: 3-month Treasury bills (Cash) iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) iShares iBoxx… Keep Reading