Industry/Asset Class Momentum Over the Long Run

Does the momentum anomaly hold for industries/asset classes over the long run? In his April 2010 draft paper entitled “Relative Strength Strategies for Investing”, Mebane Faber quantifies the effects on gross returns of applying simple momentum/trend following  rules to U.S. equity industry and global asset class portfolios. His “intent is to describe some simple methods that an everyday investor can use to implement momentum models in trading.” Momentum rankings derive from trailing total returns over intervals ranging from one to twelve months, as well as a combination of multiple intervals. Using monthly levels of ten value-weighted U.S. equity industries spanning July 1926 through December 2009 and of global asset classes spanning 1973-2009, he concludes that: (more…)