Investing Research Articles

What are asset class return expectations and associated portfolio allocations of very sophisticated U.S. investors? In their February 2019 paper entitled “The Return Expectations of Institutional Investors”, Aleksandar Andonov and Joshua Rauh analyze disclosures of expected returns across asset classes among U.S. public pension funds, which hold assets of about $4 trillion (see the first… Keep Reading

A subscriber asked for verification of the finding in “Is Buying Stocks at an All-Time High a Good Idea?” that it is not only a good idea, but a great one, including comparison to a moving average crossover rule. To investigate, we use the S&P 500 Index as a proxy for the U.S. stock market… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 11/18/19 through 11/22/19. 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.

Does the market react most strongly to the earliest quarterly earnings announcements? In their October 2019 paper entitled “Calendar Rotations: A New Approach for Studying the Impact of Timing using Earnings Announcements”, Suzie Noh, Eric So and Rodrigo Verdi study effects of the relative order of U.S. firm quarterly earnings announcements, which vary systematically for… Keep Reading

Are there relationships between (1) the stock market outlook expressed by a U.S. equity mutual fund manager in semi-annual reports and (2) positioning and performance of that fund? In his October 2019 preliminary paper entitled “Are Professional Investors Prone to Behavioral Biases? Evidence from Mutual Fund Managers”, Mehran Azimi examines these relationships. Specifically, for each… Keep Reading

Do U.S. equity exchange-traded funds (ETF) exhibit long-term momentum? In their October 2019 paper entitled “ETF Momentum”, Frank Li, Melvyn Teo and Chloe Yang investigate future performance of U.S. equity ETFs sorted on multi-year past returns. Each month starting August 2004, they: Sort selected ETFs into tenths (deciles) based on returns over the past two,… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 11/11/19 through 11/15/19. 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.

Does including a measure of asset valuation as a qualifier improve the performance of intrinsic (absolute or time series) momentum? In their October 2019 paper entitled “Carry and Time-Series Momentum: A Match Made in Heaven”, Marat Molyboga, Junkai Qian and Chaohua He investigate modification of an intrinsic momentum strategy as applied to futures using the… Keep Reading

A subscriber asked for an update on the effectiveness of applying a two-period Relative Strength Index, RSI(2), to leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETF), with two pairs of trade entry (oversold) and exit (overbought) settings: Buy when RSI(2) falls below 10 and sell when it subsequently rises over 90 (10-90). More conservatively, buy when RSI(2) falls below 5 and exit when it subsequently rises… Keep Reading

What are ways to mitigate biases that interfere with rational investment decision-making? In their September 2019 paper entitled “The Psychology of Financial Professionals and Their Clients”, Kent Baker, Greg Filbeck and Victor Ricciardi describe common psychological biases and suggest ways to overcome them. Based on their knowledge and experience, they conclude that: