Investing Research Articles

Is the number of institutional owners of a stock, arguably a proxy for general investor awareness and demand, an important factor in current and future pricing of the stock? In their February 2011 paper entitled “What Makes Stock Prices Move? Fundamentals vs. Investor Recognition”, Scott Richardson, Richard Sloan and Haifeng You investigate the role of… Keep Reading

Are there reliable lead-lag relationships among stock market returns, changes in the Federal Funds Rate (FFR) and changes in Treasury bond yields? In their February 2011 paper entitled “The US Stock Market Leads the Federal Funds Rate and Treasury Bond Yields”, Kun Guo, Wei-Xing Zhou, Si-Wei Cheng and Didier Sornette apply a new “thermal optimal… Keep Reading

Do options quote movements anticipate those of underlying stocks? In other words, are options traders systematically more informed than stock traders? In their January 2011 paper entitled “Is There Price Discovery in Equity Options?”, Dmitriy Muravyev, Neil Pearson and John Paul Broussard test the lead-lag relationship between the bid-ask ranges of equity options and the… Keep Reading

In his 2010 book Wave Theory for Alternative Investments: Riding the Wave with Hedge Funds, Commodities, and Venture Capital, author Stephen Todd Walker asserts that “dynamic asset allocation (as opposed to static allocation) is imperative… In my view, now is the time that one should be adding alternatives to a well-diversified portfolio. It is time… Keep Reading

How have S&P 500 firms performed over the past two decades, in aggregate and individually, relative to reasonable investor expectations? In their February 2011 brief entitled “Shareholder Value Creators in the S&P 500: 1991-2010”, Pablo Fernandez, Javier Aguirreamalloa and Luis Corres tabulate the creation of value by major U.S. firms for long-term shareholders relative to… Keep Reading

Is there a window of exploitation before prices of individual stocks incorporate relevant information shocks? If so, what is its duration? In their January 2011 paper entitled “Speed of Convergence to Market Efficiency: The Role of ECNs”, Dennis Chung and Karel Hrazdil investigate the duration of stock price inefficiency based on the time interval over… Keep Reading

A reader asked: “Do you have any research on the phenomenon of ‘pinning’ during options expiration? The theory is that there is a Max Pain price where options sellers stand to lose the least, and that they manipulate prices towards these levels.” A search of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) separately for “pinning” and… Keep Reading

Do emerging markets exchange-traded funds (ETF) reliably track and on average achieve the returns of benchmark indexes? In their February 2011 paper entitled “Evaluating the Performance of Global Emerging Markets Equity Exchange-Traded Funds”, David Blitz and Joop Huij examine the performances of emerging markets ETFs comprised of country markets such as South Korea, China, India,… Keep Reading

Can financial statement analysis expose stocks that investors incorrectly view as value or growth (glamor)? In their February 2011 paper entitled “Identifying Expectation Errors in Value/Glamour Strategies: A Fundamental Analysis Approach”, Joseph Piotroski and Eric So investigate stock misvaluation by contrasting firm performance expectations implied by value/growth classification with a simple financial statement metric that… Keep Reading

…evidence from simple tests on recent data offers little support for belief in day-of-the-week anomalies in broad stock market returns.