Investing Research Articles

In response to “Best Equity Risk Premium”, a subscriber asked whether the annual equity risk premium estimates of Aswath Damodaran predict stock market returns one year ahead. The cited source offers two 61-year series of annual estimates of the U.S. equity risk premium implied by an S&P 500:  Dividend Discount Model (DDM).  Free Cash Flow… Keep Reading

Do simple stock index option strategies (stock-covered calls, cash-covered puts and collars) outperform the underlying index? To investigate, we examine performances of: CBOE S&P 500 BuyWrite Index (BXM),CBOE S&P 500 PutWrite Index (PUT) and CBOE S&P 500 95-110 Collar Index (CLL), with S&P 500 Total Return Index (SPTR) as a benchmark. Invesco S&P 500 BuyWrite… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 5/2/22 through 5/6/22. 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 reader requested evaluation of the Fosback Index and its Ned Davis variant. The creators of these indicators argue that a high (low) ratio of cash equivalents to assets among equity mutual funds indicates strong (weak) potential demand for stocks. The Investment Company Institute (ICI) surveys mutual fund managers monthly (with a lag of about a month)… Keep Reading

Does the finding from long-short factor analysis that the value premium is stronger among small stocks than large stocks hold for long-only value portfolios? In his April 2022 paper entitled “Long-Only Value Investing: Does Size Matter?”, Jack Vogel investigates interactions between the value premium and market capitalization for U.S. and international stocks. The steps in… Keep Reading

Do U.S. stock momentum exchange-traded funds (ETF) deliver attractive performance? In their February 2022 paper entitled “A Look Under the Hood of Momentum Funds”, Ayelen Banegas and Carlo Rosa examine the performance of U.S. stock momentum funds. To measure performance uncontaminated by discretionary stock picking and portfolio construction methods, they focus on mechanical (passive) momentum… Keep Reading

A subscriber requested confirmation of the following relationship between U.S. M2 Money Stock and gold offered in “Why Gold May Be Looking Cheap”: “[O]ne measure I’ve found useful is the ratio of the price of gold to the U.S. money supply, measured by M2, which includes cash as well as things like money market funds,… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 4/25/22 through 4/29/22. 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.

The “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) allocates across 3-month Treasury bills (Cash, or T-bill), iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond (TLT), iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond (LQD) and SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) according to the relative valuations of term, credit and equity risk premiums. Does applying a simple moving average (SMA) filter to SACEVS allocations improve its… Keep Reading

A subscriber, citing an assertion (without explanation) from an interview with a hedge fund manager, asked for confirmation that negative real yields on U.S. Treasury instruments predict poor returns for emerging market equities.  To investigate, we look at interactions between the real return on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes (T-notes) and return on iShares MSCI Emerging… Keep Reading