Investing Research Articles

What kind of firm growth should long-term investors value most? In his August 2022 paper entitled “The Role of Net Income Growth in Explaining Long-Horizon Stock Returns”, Hendrik Bessembinder relates decade compound stock returns to same-decade growth in firm net income, sales and assets and same-decade average profitability (income-to-assets ratio). His universe consists of U.S…. Keep Reading

A subscriber asked about frequency, magnitude and duration of bear market rallies. To investigate, we employ the S&P 500 Index and consider three ways to define a bear market: From the day the index is first down over 20% from a prior peak until the day it closes no more than 20% down (< -20%… Keep Reading

Is the gap between the yield on the 10-year constant maturity U.S. Treasury note (T-note) and the 10-Year breakeven inflation rate (a measure of expected inflation over the next 10 years derived from T-note yield and 10-Year Treasury inflation-indexed constant maturity securities yield) indicative of future stock market or U.S. Treasury bond yields? To investigate,… Keep Reading

Does the sentiment expressed by major newspapers about the economy usefully predict stock market returns? To investigate, we employ the Daily News Sentiment Index, constructed from “economics-related news articles from 24 major U.S. newspapers [across] all major regions of the country…with at least 200 words… The Daily News Sentiment Index is constructed as a trailing weighted-average… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/15/22 through 8/19/22. 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 suggested testing SentimenTrader’s Dumb Money Confidence model “that incorporates more than a dozen indicators that have a track record of cycling to extremes, and equating with ebbs and flows in sentiment among broad categories of investors.” To investigate, we transcribe monthly values of Dumb Money Confidence from the chart at the link and… Keep Reading

Which variables deserve greatest focus when predicting stock market returns? In their July 2022 paper entitled “Searching for the Best Conditional Equity Premium Model”, Hui Guo, Saidat Sanni and Yan Yu exhaustively explore combinations of 18 previously identified potential stock market return predictors to isolate the most powerful subset. They focus on a best subset… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/8/22 through 8/12/22. 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 whether a rapid, large (20% or more) individual country currency devaluation versus the U.S. dollar indicates that the country’s stock market will rise the next quarter (with country exports presumably more competitive post-devaluation). To investigate, we select five currency exchange rates versus the U.S. dollar and relate monthly and quarterly changes in… Keep Reading

How sensitive are findings about the magnitude and reliability of equity factor premiums to differences in the rules researchers use in sorting stocks to calculate them? In their July 2022 paper entitled “Non-Standard Errors in Portfolio Sorts”, Dominik Walter, Rüdiger Weber and Patrick Weiss examine variations in factor premiums (non-standard errors) due to differences in… Keep Reading