August 25, 2023 Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/21/23 through 8/25/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...
August 25, 2023 Strategic Allocation
Alternative assets (private equity, private market real estate, hedge funds and other assets apart from stocks and bonds) constitute approximately 30% of U.S. public pension fund portfolios and 60% of large U.S. endowment portfolios. Are...
August 23, 2023 Economic Indicators
In response to “PPI and the Stock Market”, a subscriber hypothesized that increases and decreases in the ratio of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to the Producer Price Index (PPI) are bullish and bearish for...
August 22, 2023 Economic Indicators
Inflation at the producer level (per the Producer Price Index, PPI) is arguably an advance indicator for inflation downstream at the consumer level (per the Consumer Price Index, CPI). Do investors reliably react to changes...
August 21, 2023 Equity Premium, Investing Expertise
While prior research indicates that analyst forecasts of future stock returns are substantially biased upward, might the relative rankings of return forecasts be informative? In their June 2023 paper entitled “Analysts Are Good at Ranking...
August 18, 2023 Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/14/23 through 8/18/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...
August 15, 2023 Strategic Allocation, Technical Trading, Volatility Effects
A subscriber requested comparison of four variations of an “Ivy 5” asset class allocation strategy, as follows: Ivy 5 EW: Assign equal weight (EW), meaning 20%, to each of the five positions and rebalance annually....
August 11, 2023 Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 8/7/23 through 8/11/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...
August 10, 2023 Bonds, Strategic Allocation
What conditions affect the correlation between stock and bond returns, a critical input to asset allocation decisions? In their July 2023 paper entitled “Empirical Evidence on the Stock-Bond Correlation”, Roderick Molenaar, Edouard Senechal, Laurens Swinkels...
August 4, 2023 Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/31/23 through 8/4/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...
August 2, 2023 Big Ideas, Investing Expertise
What is the state of machine learning in finance? In their July 2023 paper entitled “Financial Machine Learning”, Bryan Kelly and Dacheng Xiu survey studies on the use of machine learning in finance to further...
August 1, 2023 Economic Indicators, Equity Premium, Fundamental Valuation
During 1989 through 2019, the S&P 500 Index generated 5.5% real annual return, compared to just 2.5% annual real growth in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). How can this disconnect happen? Can it continue? In...
July 28, 2023 Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/24/23 through 7/28/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...
July 27, 2023 Equity Premium
Which previously researched variables or combinations of such variables best predict long-term U.S. stock market returns? In their June 2023 paper entitled “Estimating Long-Term Expected Returns”, Rui Ma, Ben Marshall, Nhut Nguyen and Nuttawat Visaltanachoti...
July 26, 2023 Equity Premium
With monthly market state specified as positive (negative) when prior-month market excess return relative to U.S. Treasury bill (T-bill) yield is positive (negative), “Equity Factor Performance Following Positive and Negative Market Returns” reports that average...
July 25, 2023 Equity Premium
Do stock return anomalies perform differently after positive and negative monthly market returns? In their July 2023 paper entitled “The Market State, Mispricing and Asset Pricing Anomalies”, Michael Di Carlo and Ilias Tsiakas examine the...
July 24, 2023 Calendar Effects
Are intraday stock market exchange-traded funds (ETF), stock sector ETFs and individual stock returns exploitably predictable at short horizons? In their June 2023 paper entitled “Intraday Stock Predictability Everywhere”, Fred Liu and Lars Stentoft study...
July 21, 2023 Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/17/23 through 7/21/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...
July 21, 2023 Individual Investing
What modeling techniques help avoid biases/overfitting in use of machine learning to predict stock returns? In his July 2023 paper entitled “Less is More? Reducing Biases and Overfitting in Machine Learning Return Predictions”, Clint Howard...
July 20, 2023 Economic Indicators
Does an expectation of an unusually large number of firm defaults in the coming year usefully predict stock and bond market returns? In their May 2023 paper entitled “Systematic Default and Return Predictability in the...
July 14, 2023 Miscellaneous
Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 7/10/23 through 7/14/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...
July 14, 2023 Individual Investing, Investing Expertise
Can state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as GPT-4, trained on the text of billions of web documents, provide sound financial advice? In their June 2023 paper entitled “Using GPT-4 for Financial Advice”, Christian Fieberg,...
July 13, 2023 Aesthetic Investments
Do companies that make the strongest commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) generate attractive stock returns? In their April 2023 paper entitled “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”, Alex Edmans, Caroline Flammer and Simon Glossner relate...
July 11, 2023 Equity Premium, Volatility Effects
Is the ability of the VIX percentile threshold rule described in “Using VIX and Investor Sentiment to Explain Stock Market Returns” to explain future stock market excess return in-sample readily exploitable out-of-sample? To investigate, we...
July 10, 2023 Sentiment Indicators, Volatility Effects
Do stock market return volatility (as a measure of risk) and aggregate investor sentiment (as a measure of risk tolerance) work well jointly to explain stock market returns? In their June 2023 paper entitled “Time-varying...