Investing Research Articles

When should an investor favor picking individual stocks over holding a stock index fund? In their November 2012 paper entitled “On Diversification”, Ben Jacobsen and Frans de Roon derive from Modern Portfolio Theory simple rules to compare concentrated investment in a portfolio of one or a few stocks to a broad, diversified (value-weighted) benchmark portfolio. The… Keep Reading

A subscriber suggested review of Empiritrage’s Volatility-Based Allocation (VBA). This strategy applies two monthly signals to an equally weighted portfolio of asset class total return proxies to determine whether to be in each proxy or cash, as follows: Step 1: If the 10-day simple moving average (SMA) of the S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) is above its 30-day… Keep Reading

“Trend Factor and Stock Returns” describes a method of extracting information from stock price simple moving averages (SMA) that is more complicated than that used by most traders. Instead of using current price above or below an SMA as a signal, this method employs offset regressions (normalized SMAs lagged one month behind returns) to project next month’s… Keep Reading

How might the capital gains tax rate affect stock market returns? First, a relatively low (high) rate might encourage (discourage) capital investment and stimulate (depress) economic growth, thereby persistently increasing (decreasing) corporate earnings and stock market returns. Second, an increase (decrease) in the rate might immediately drive lower (higher) portfolio allocations to stocks and thereby… Keep Reading

Nassim Taleb introduces his 2012 book, Antifragile, Things That Gain from Disorder, as “…my central work. I’ve had only one master idea, each time taken to the next step, the last step–this book–being more like a big jump. I am reconnected to my ‘practical self,’ my soul of a practitioner, as this is a merger of my… Keep Reading

A subscriber asked whether limiting choices in the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) to IWB, IWM, RWR, EFA and EEM (TLT, GLD, DBC and Cash) when above (below) the 200-day simple moving average improves model performance. To investigate, we assume the simple moving average (SMA) is for the S&P 500 Index as proxy… Keep Reading

Is equity market liquidity useful as an asset allocation signal? In their November 2012 paper entitled “Liquidity-Driven Dynamic Asset Allocation”, James Xiong, Rodney Sullivan and Peng Wang examine the performance of a dynamic stocks-bonds allocation strategy with weightings based on equity market liquidity. For liquidity measurement, they focus on monthly changes in Amihud illiquidity (aggregating individual responses of stock… Keep Reading

Does the S&P 500 implied volatility index (VIX) behave predictably after up or down streaks? To check, we look at next-day percentage changes in VIX after up and down streaks ranging from two to seven trading sessions. To test exploitability, we repeat the analysis on the much shorter sample available for the iPath S&P 500 VIX ST Futures… Keep Reading

What pitfalls face forecasters trying to predict financial markets with economic data series? In their November 2012 preliminary paper entitled “Forecasting through the Rear-View Mirror: Data Revisions and Bond Return Predictability”, Eric Ghysels, Casidhe Horan and Emanuel Moench examine the predictive power of economic data to predict annual returns for U.S. Treasury notes (T-note) with constant… Keep Reading

Wars both consume crude oil and potentially disrupt supplies. Do they reliably drive up oil price? In their November 2012 paper entitled “Crude Oil as a Safe Haven Asset in Times of War”, Tomasz Wisniewski and Ayman Omar examine the behaviors of crude oil price and stock market indexes around severe international crises and wars…. Keep Reading