Investing Research Articles

A subscriber asked (years ago): “Everyone says I should not invest in bonds today because the interest rate is so low (and inflation is daunting). But real bond returns over the last 30 years are...

Is following the lead of certain types of equity investors as effective as using widely accepted factor models of stock returns? In their March 2021 paper entitled “What Do the Portfolios of Individual Investors Reveal...

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 3/8/21 through 3/12/21. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...

How has the market environment changed with the introduction of zero-commission trading and associated interest in trading among many inexperienced users? In their January 2021 paper entitled “Zero-Commission Individual Investors, High Frequency Traders, and Stock...

How can the retail trader tail wag the market dog? In their February 2021 paper entitled “The Equity Market Implications of the Retail Investment Boom”, Philippe van der Beck and Coralie Jaunin quantify impacts of...

Under current U.S. accounting rules, many investments in innovation, human resources and brand that are crucial to long-term competitiveness immediately reduce operating profits and earnings (are expensed rather than capitalized). Does failure to incorporate such...

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 3/1/21 through 3/5/21. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...

Do negative environmental, social and governance (ESG) incidents (environmental pollution, poor employment conditions or anti-competitive practices) indicate poor firm management and therefore underperforming stocks? In his February 2021 paper entitled “ESG Incidents and Shareholder Value”,...

Are gold and bitcoin similar assets? In his December 2020 paper entitled “Bitcoin is Exactly Like Gold Except When it Isn’t”, Claude Erb compares and contrasts the following aspects of gold and bitcoin: Inflation hedge...

Value investing performance over the past two decades is poor. Is this underperformance a temporary consequence of an unusual macro environment, or a reflection of permanent economic/equity market changes. In their February 2021 paper entitled...

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 2/22/21 through 2/26/21. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...

Investors seeking low-cost, automated, tax-efficient and potentially alpha-generating solutions increasingly follow model portfolios of exchange-traded funds (ETF). Is there a top-down way to characterize those models? In their November 2020 paper entitled “Using Data Science...

Can diversification across economic states improve portfolio performance? In their November 2020 paper entitled “Investing Through a Macro Factor Lens”, Harald Lohre, Robert Hixon, Jay Raol, Alexander Swade, Hua Tao and Scott Wolle study interactions...

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 2/16/21 through 2/19/21. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 2/8/21 through 2/12/21. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...

A subscriber asked for a performance comparison between 50% Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) Best Value-50% Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS) equal-weighted top two (EW Top 2), rebalanced monthly (SACEVS-SACEMS 50-50),...

Why have so many quantitative funds performed poorly in recent years? In his January 2021 paper entitled “The Quant Crisis of 2018-2020: Cornered by Big Growth”, David Blitz examines in detail recent (June 2018 through...

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 2/1/21 through 2/5/21. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...

Can investors use leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETF) as building blocks for long-term portfolios? In his January 2021 presentation package entitled “One Year Later. Leveraged ETFs in Portfolio Construction and Portfolio Protection”, Mikhail Smirnov updates multi-year...

Does the low-risk stock anomaly hold for China A shares, dominated by local private investors rather than institutions and characterized by high volatility and herding? In their January 2021 paper entitled “The Volatility Effect in...

What performance should investors expect from the S&P 500 Index based on price-to-earnings (P/E) and Cyclically-Adjusted Price-to-Earnings (CAPE, or P/E10)? In their November 2020 paper entitled “Extreme Valuations and Future Returns of the S&P 500”,...

A European subscriber asked about the effect of the dollar-euro exchange rate on the Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy (SACEVS) and the Simple Asset Class ETF Momentum Strategy (SACEMS). To investigate, we each month...

How has the marketplace for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) evolved? What performances do its “species” deliver? In their January 2021 paper entitled “Competition for Attention in the ETF Space”, Itzhak Ben-David, Francesco Franzoni, Byungwook Kim and...

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 1/25/21 through 1/29/21. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to...

Is it possible to achieve an attractive return with very low risk from a small universe of exchange-traded funds (ETF)? In the January 2021 revision of his paper entitled “Lazy Momentum with Growth-Trend Timing: Resilient...