November 4, 2016 - Animal Spirits, Short Selling
Do short sellers who publicly attack their targets affect stock prices? How do they choose their targets? In his October 2016 paper entitled “Activist Short-Selling”, Wuyang Zhao studies short sellers who publish adverse research on and/or publicly disparage the stocks they short. To assess unique effects of the negative publicity on targeted stock prices, he compares performances of targeted… Keep Reading
November 2, 2016 - Mutual/Hedge Funds
Does a model based on factors extracted from investable exchange-traded funds (ETF) work as well in evaluating fund alphas as models based on factors from more conceptional portfolios? In their October 2016 paper entitled “Bringing Order to Chaos: Capturing Relevant Information with Hedge Fund Factor Models”, Yongjia Li and Alexey Malakhov examine a hedge fund performance evaluation model that identifies risk… Keep Reading
October 31, 2016 - Strategic Allocation
Are economic globalization and market financialization extinguishing diversification? In their October 2016 paper entitled “Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide: Asset Diversification in a Flat World”, John Cotter, Stuart Gabriel and Richard Roll examine diversification within and across equity, government debt and real estate investment trust (REIT) indexes worldwide (a total of 40 indexes spanning 23 countries). They… Keep Reading
October 28, 2016 - Equity Premium
Do stocks entering (exiting) factor indexes experience a price jump (drop) due to increased (decreased) demand? In their October 2016 paper entitled “Price Response to Factor Index Decompositions”, Joop Huij and Georgi Kyosev examine price impacts for stocks entering and exiting MSCI Minimum Volatility factor indexes covering U.S., European, global and emerging markets. To isolate the factor index effect,… Keep Reading
October 27, 2016 - Equity Premium
Do the realities of trading (bids and asks, stale prices, large orders, noise traders and technical traders) that may drive asset price away from fundamental value affect some stocks more than others? If so, is the effect exploitable? In their October 2016 draft paper entitled “(Priced) Frictions”, Kewei Hou, Sehoon Kim and Ingrid Werner assess the impact of… Keep Reading
October 25, 2016 - Animal Spirits, Equity Premium
Are stocks with high prices or low prices inherently better deals? In their October 2016 paper entitled “Nominal Stock Price Investing”, Ulrich Hammerich, Christian Fieberg and Thorsten Poddig examine the relationship between stock price and future stock performance in the German equity market. Specifically, they each month sort stocks by price and measure the difference in average… Keep Reading
October 21, 2016 - Equity Premium
Enterprise multiple (EM) is the ratio of enterprise value (EV) to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), with EV market value of equity plus total debt and preferred stock value minus cash and short-term investments. What happens when EM disagrees with other stock valuation metrics? In their October 2016 paper entitled “Why Do Enterprise… Keep Reading
October 19, 2016 - Size Effect, Volatility Effects
Is the finding in “Expected Stock Market Volatility and the Size Effect” that the size effect concentrates in intervals after months of very high stock market volatility robustly evident from liquid exchange-traded funds (ETF)? To investigate, we define the size effect as the difference in returns between iShares Russell 2000 (IWM) and iShares Russell 1000 (IWB)… Keep Reading
October 18, 2016 - Size Effect, Volatility Effects
Is the size effect (small stocks tend to outperform large stocks) related to level of market risk as indicated by expected stock market volatility? In their September 2016 paper entitled “High Risk Episodes and the Equity Size Premium”, Naresh Bansal, Robert Connolly and Chris Stivers investigate the relationship between the size effect and two measures of expected stock… Keep Reading
October 17, 2016 - Momentum Investing, Volatility Effects
Does adjusting leverage based on lagged strategy volatility protect an industry momentum strategy from crashes? In their September 2016 paper entitled “Risk-Managed Industry Momentum and Momentum Crashes”, Klaus Grobys, Joni Ruotsalainen and Janne Aijo investigate the profitability of risk-managed industry momentum strategies. Their asset universe consists of the 49 Fama-French value-weighted industry portfolios. They focus on a conventional momentum strategy that… Keep Reading