Investing Research Articles

A subscriber asked about practical exploitation of the hypothesis that the high and low of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) during 9:30AM-10:30AM are informative about its high and low during 10:31AM-4PM. To investigate, we obtain minute-by-minute open, high, low and close prices for SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) for 2019. From that data, we extract the… Keep Reading

How does the U.S. stock return factor zoo, corrected for data snooping bias, change over time? In their March 2023 draft paper entitled “Useful Factors Are Fewer Than You Think”, Bin Chen, Qiyang Yu and Guofu Zhou tackle this question by asking: How many of 207 published factors remain significant after controlling for false discovery… Keep Reading

Is model complexity (large number of parameters) more an analytical benefit in predicting asset returns, or more an avenue to discover in-sample luck? In their March 2023 paper entitled “Complexity in Factor Pricing Models”, Antoine Didisheim, Shikun Ke, Bryan Kelly and Semyon Malamud examine the theoretical relationship between input complexity and output accuracy for machine… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 3/27/23 through 3/31/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to your investing needs. Subscribers: To receive these weekly digests via email, click here to sign up for our mailing list.

A subscriber asked about backtesting two alternatives to equal weight (EW) for the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) Top 2 and Top 3 portfolios, as follows: Fixed Weighted: For Top 2, 66% allocation to the first-place exchange-traded fund (ETF) and 34% to the second-place ETF. For Top 3, 50% allocation to the first-place… Keep Reading

Do hedge funds rapidly move to exploit, and thereby weaken/extinguish, newly discovered stock return anomalies? In the December 2022 version of their paper entitled “Anomaly Discovery and Arbitrage Trading”, Xi Dong, Qi Liu, Lei Lu, Bo Sun and Hongjun Yan measure the post-publication role of hedge funds on 99 published stock return anomalies (or latest… Keep Reading

Do investors reliably react over short and intermediate terms to changes in the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), a logical measure of the wealth discount rate? Using monthly total and core (excluding food and energy) CPI releases (for all items, not seasonally adjusted) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and contemporaneous S&P 500 Index opens… Keep Reading

Are their practical ways to suppress the sometimes large reduction in academic (gross) equity factor premiums due to trading frictions and other implementation obstacles? In their March 2023 paper entitled “Smart Rebalancing”, Robert Arnott, Feifei Li and Juhani Linnainmaa first examine the performance and related turnover of seven long-only factor premiums: annually reformed (end of… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 3/20/23 through 3/24/23. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to your investing needs. Subscribers: To receive these weekly digests via email, click here to sign up for our mailing list.

Does the difference in individual stock/market return relationships between good times (relatively low correlations) and bad times (relatively high correlations) present an easy and efficient way to hedge against stock market crashes (tail risk)? In their March 2023 paper entitled “Tail Risk Hedging: The Search for Cheap Options”, Poh Ling Neo and Chyng Wen Tee… Keep Reading