Investing Research Articles

Is the value premium seasonal? In their 2012 paper entitled “Is the Value Effect Seasonal? Evidence from Global Equity Markets”, Praveen Kumar Das and Uma Rao investigate the intersection of the January effect and the value premium in stock market indexes around the world. They consider market capitalization-weighted value and growth stock portfolios for the following… Keep Reading

Do hedge funds trade on market risk, idiosyncratic risk or tail risk? In their November 2011 paper entitled “Systematic Risk and the Cross-Section of Hedge Fund Returns”, Turan Bali, Stephen Brown and Mustafa Caglayan explore the predictability of hedge fund returns based on distinct market-related (systematic), idiosyncratic (residual) and tail risk measures. They alternatively consider four-factor… Keep Reading

Does momentum investing work for currencies as it does for equities? In the December 2011 version of their paper entitled “Currency Momentum Strategies”, Lukas Menkhoff, Lucio Sarno, Maik Schmeling and Andreas Schrimpf investigate momentum strategies in foreign exchange (FX) markets. FX markets are generally more liquid than equity markets, with huge transaction volumes, low trading… Keep Reading

Can investors earn a reliable premium from stocks with high downside risk? In their January 2012 paper entitle “Sorting Out Downside Beta”, Thierry Post, Pim Van Vliet and Simon Lansdorp measure in four ways (including regular beta) the premium associated with stock sensitivity to market movements. They estimate excess market returns based on total returns of… Keep Reading

In the brief August 2011 paper entitled “Paired-switching for Tactical Portfolio Allocation”, flagged by a subscriber, Akhilesh Maewal and Joel Bock investigate the efficiency of a simple momentum strategy applied to pairs of exchange-traded funds (ETF) with negative return correlations. Every 13 weeks (four times per year), they rank the performances of the two funds over… Keep Reading

Over the past few days, in the background, we have updated and rationalized “Simple Sector ETF Momentum Strategy” (update pending) and “Doing Momentum with Style (ETFs)” (update just published). Updated means adding data for December 2011. Rationalized means making the two analyses more similar in data processing and presentation approaches. We have also put together, and will soon… Keep Reading

How do individual investors adjust trading behaviors during bull and bear markets? Are any such adjustments advantageous? In their December 2011 paper entitled “Don’t Confuse Brains with a Bull Market: Attribution Bias, Market Condition, and Trading Behavior of Individual Investors”, Zhen Shi and Na Wang examine the trading behaviors of individual investors during different market conditions…. Keep Reading

…evidence from simple tests does not support a belief that investors/traders tend to exit the market before three-day weekends and re-enter after. There may be some tendency toward extra bullishness (bearishness) before (after) three-day weekends, but this tendency is not very consistent.

Are realized (actual historical) and implied volatilities the whole story for equity option valuation? In their December 2011 paper entitled “Fundamental Analysis and Option Returns”, Theodore Goodman, Monica Neamtiu and Frank Zhang investigate the extent to which the equity options market fails to recognize volatility of firm operations (accounting data) and whether any such failure is… Keep Reading

Can investors exploit idiosyncratic volatility exhibited by commodity futures? In their December 2011 paper entitled “Idiosyncratic Volatility Strategies in Commodity Futures Markets”, Adrian Fernancez-Perez, Ana-Maria Fuertes and Joelle Miffre investigate the usefulness of idiosyncratic volatility as a predictor of commodity futures returns. They define idiosyncratic volatility of commodity futures as return volatility not explained by contemporaneous variation in… Keep Reading