Investing Research Articles

Is beta an effective tool for selecting exchange-traded funds (ETF)? In their October 2010 paper entitled “Black Swans, Beta, Risk, and Return”, Javier Estrada and Mari­a Vargas investigate the usefulness of beta as a metric for constructing portfolios of country and industry ETFs. They use the MSCI world market index (consisting of developed markets only… Keep Reading

Does high-frequency trading amplify noise and thereby reduce the signal-to-noise ratio in stock returns? In his August 2010 paper entitled “The Effect of High-Frequency Trading on Stock Volatility and Price Discovery”, Frank Zhang examines the effect of high-frequency trading on stock price volatility and on incorporation of fundamental news into price. He defines high-frequency trading… Keep Reading

Conventional wisdom is that company management can maximize stock price by issuing weak guidance for future earnings that sets low expectations, and then reporting earnings that beat the low expectations. Does evidence support this belief? In their September 2010 paper entitled “The Stock Price Effects from Downward Earnings Guidance Versus Beating Analysts’ Forecasts: Which Effect… Keep Reading

Should long-term investors view their retirement portfolios more like houses than savings plans? In other words, should they start out with considerable leverage and draw the leverage down gradually over time? In their October 2010 paper entitled “Diversification Across Time”, Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff investigate the effects of initially implementing and then gradually phasing… Keep Reading

Both stock price momentum and asset growth rate exhibit empirical value as return predictors for individual stocks. Does combining these indicators offer enhanced value to investors? In their September 2010 paper entitled “Firm Expansion and Stock Price Momentum”, Peter Nyberg and Salla Pöyry investigate the interaction between firm-level asset growth (change in balance sheet total… Keep Reading

…evidence from detailed modeling indicates that tension between holding period and bid-ask spread greatly limits the profit available to aggressive high-frequency trading.

…evidence indicates that the value premium and momentum effect exist at a gross level among frontier market stocks and that these anomalies are both mutually diversifying and diversifying for a global portfolio.

…evidence indicates that investors may be able to outperform a benchmark emerging markets index by exploiting simple country-level value metrics.

…evidence indicates that both fund expenses and dividend taxes constitute substantial drags on European index funds compared to underlying indexes. In other words, each investor may want to account for the personal effect of dividend tax withholding in evaluating affected funds.

Generalizations from the body of equity price trend research are: (1) stocks tend to exhibit short-term reversal, intermediate-term momentum and long-term reversion; and, (2) small capitalization and high-volatility stocks tend to exhibit the strongest momentum. What about the combination of size and volatility? In the September 2010 version of his paper entitled “Do Momentum and… Keep Reading