Investing Research Articles

Is there a “trick” to good results for risk parity backtests? In their April 2014 brief research paper entitled “The Risks of Risk Parity”, the Brandes Institute examines the sustainability of a critical performance driver for the risk parity asset allocation approach. This approach weights asset classes such that their expected contributions to overall portfolio risk (volatility) are equal, generally by… Keep Reading

How do those whose jobs involve stock valuation perform this task? In their September 2015 paper entitled “Equity Valuation: A Survey of Professional Practice”, Jerald Pinto, Thomas Robinson and John Stowe report results of a 38-question equity valuation practices survey sent to 13,500 CFA Institute members with equity analysis job responsibilities. They guided respondents through the survey via the following introductory question: “In evaluating… Keep Reading

Are annual stock market winning and losing streaks informative about future market performance? To investigate, we consider up and down annual streaks for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). We look at streaks in two ways: Retrospective (non-overlapping). We know the total duration of each streak. Experienced (real-time and partially overlapping). We know each year how long… Keep Reading

Robert Carver introduces his 2015 book, Systematic Trading: A Unique New Method for Designing Trading and Investing Systems, by stating that: “I don’t believe there is any magic system that will automatically make you huge profits, and you should be wary of anyone who says otherwise, especially if they want to sell it to you. Instead, success in systematic… Keep Reading

What drives the profitability of algorithmic long-short statistical arbitrage trading (such as pairs trading) of liquid U.S. stocks? In their September 2015 paper entitled “Performance v. Turnover: A Story by 4,000 Alphas”, Zura Kakushadze and Igor Tulchinsky examine portfolio turnover and portfolio volatility as potential net return drivers for such trading. Their data source is 4,002 randomly… Keep Reading

Is an art collection a good investment? In the August 2015 version of their paper entitled “Art as an Asset and Keynes the Collector”, David Chambers, Elroy Dimson and Christophe Spaenjers study the performance of an actual buy-and-hold art portfolio, the collection of economist John Maynard Keynes. “Keynes purchased artworks through various channels between 1917 and 1945,… Keep Reading

What are the principal themes of research on hedge funds published in top journals over the past decade? In their August 2015 paper entitled “Hedge Funds: A Survey of the Academic Literature”, Vikas Agarwal, Kevin Mullally and Narayan Naik summarize 121 papers on hedge funds and commodity trading advisors from four leading finance journals. They focus on the… Keep Reading

Are there exploitable size and momentum effects among international stocks? In their August 2015 paper entitled “Size and Momentum Profitability in International Stock Markets”, Peter Schmidt, Urs Von Arx, Andreas Schrimpf, Alexander Wagner and Andreas Ziegler examine the size effect and the interplay between size and momentum strategies via long-short stock portfolios in 23 countries. They measure stock size as… Keep Reading

Does simple technical analysis based on moving averages work on high-frequency spot gold and silver trading? In their August 2015 paper entitled “Does Technical Analysis Beat the Market? – Evidence from High Frequency Trading in Gold and Silver”, Andrew Urquhart, Jonathan Batten, Brian Lucey, Frank McGroarty and Maurice Peat examine the profitability of 5-minute moving average technical analysis in the gold and… Keep Reading

Does a stock momentum strategy selecting only persistent winners and losers work better than a conventional strategy that includes one-month wonders? In their August 2015 paper entitled “Persistency of the Momentum Effect: The Role of Consistent Winners and Losers”, Hong-Yi Chen, Pin-Huang Chou and Chia-Hsun Hsieh examine stock momentum persistence as a condition for momentum portfolio construction. They define the momentum… Keep Reading