Elisabetta Basilico, PhD, CFA, Author at Alpha Architect

About Elisabetta Basilico, PhD, CFA

Dr. Elisabetta Basilico is a seasoned investment professional with an expertise in "turning academic insights into investment strategies." Research is her life's work and by combing her scientific grounding in quantitative investment management with a pragmatic approach to business challenges, she’s helped several institutional investors achieve stable returns from their global wealth portfolios. Her expertise spans from asset allocation to active quantitative investment strategies. Holder of the Charter Financial Analyst since 2007 and a PhD from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, she has experience in teaching and research at various international universities and co-author of articles published in peer-reviewed journals. She and co-author Tommi Johnsen published a book on research-backed investment ideas, titled Smarte(er) Investing. How Academic Insights Propel the Savvy Investor. You can find additional information at Academic Insights on Investing.

Factors Investing in Cryptocurrency

We find that three factors—cryptocurrency market, size, and momentum—capture the cross-sectional expected cryptocurrency returns. We consider a comprehensive list of price- and market-related return predictors in the stock market and construct their cryptocurrency counterparts. Ten cryptocurrency characteristics form successful long-short strategies that generate sizable and statistically significant excess returns, and we show that all of these strategies are accounted for by the cryptocurrency three-factor model. Lastly, we examine potential underlying mechanisms of the cryptocurrency size and momentum effects.

How Race Influences Asset Allocation Decisions

Of the $69.1 trillion global financial assets under management across mutual funds, hedge funds, real estate, and private equity, fewer than 1.3% are managed by women and people of color. Why is this powerful, elite industry so racially homogenous? We conducted an online experiment with actual asset allocators to determine whether there are biases in their evaluations of funds led by people of color, and, if so, how these biases manifest. We asked asset allocators to rate venture capital funds based on their evaluation of a 1-page summary of the fund’s performance history, in which we manipulated the race of the managing partner (White or Black) and the strength of the fund’s credentials (stronger or weaker). Asset allocators favored the White-led, racially homogenous team when credentials were stronger, but the Black-led, racially diverse team when credentials were weaker. Moreover, asset allocators’ judgments of the team’s competence were more strongly correlated with predictions about future performance (e.g., money raised) for racially homogenous teams than for racially diverse teams. Despite the apparent preference for racially diverse teams at weaker performance levels, asset allocators did not express a high likelihood of investing in these teams. These results suggest first that underrepresentation of people of color in the realm of investing is not only a pipeline problem, and second, that funds led by people of color might paradoxically face the most barriers to advancement after they have established themselves as strong performers.

Form 3 and Form 4 Alpha: Focus on What Insiders Don’t Trade

Some individuals, e.g., those holding multiple directorships, are insiders at multiple firms. When they execute an insider trade at one firm, they may reveal information about the value of all—both the traded insider position and not-traded insider position(s)—the securities held in their “insider portfolio.” We find that insider “not-sold” stocks outperform “not-bought” stocks. Implementable trading strategies that buy not-sold stocks following the disclosure of a sale earn alphas up to 4.8% per year after trading costs. The results suggest that even insider sales that are motivated by liquidity and diversification needs can provide value-relevant information about insider holdings.

Benefits of Having a Female CFO

We examine gender differences in the language of CFOs who participate in quarterly earnings calls. Female executives are more concise and less optimistic, are clearer, use fewer idioms or clichés, and provide more numbers in their speech. These differences are particularly strong in the more spontaneous Questions and Answers (QA) section of the calls and are reflected in stronger market and analyst reactions. Gender differences seem to be associated with CFO overconfidence.

Did Covid-19 Change how We Shop?

We study e-commerce across 47 economies and 26 industries during the COVID-19 pandemic using aggregated and anonymized transaction-level data from Mastercard, scaled to represent total consumer spending. The share of online transactions in total consumption increased more in economies with higher pre-pandemic e-commerce shares, exacerbating the digital divide across economies. Overall, the latest data suggest that these spikes in online spending shares are dissipating at the aggregate level, though there is variation across industries. In particular, the share of online spending in professional services and recreation has fallen below its pre-pandemic trend, but we observe a longer-lasting shift to digital in retail and restaurants.

Shorting ETFs: A look into the ETF Loan Market

We find that exchange-traded fund (ETF) lending fees are significantly higher than stock lending fees. Two institutional features unique to ETFs play significant roles in explaining the high fees. First, regulations restrict investment companies, such as mutual funds and ETFs, from owning ETFs. As these institutions are key lenders, their absence reduces the lendable supply in the ETF loan market. Second, while the create-to-lend (CTL) mechanism alleviates supply constraints when borrowing demand increases, its efficacy is limited by the associated costs and frictions. Our results speak to the limits to arbitrage in the ETF markets.

Which Articles Should You Read on SeekingAlpha.com?

The authors hypothesize that impression management consideration can also significantly determine investors’ conversations. This, in turn, can cause investors to inadvertently propagate noise with wide-ranging implications for the quality of investors’ investment decisions and asset prices.

What Percentage of Women Serve in Senior Investment Roles?

There is a “Pink” elephant in the room. The paucity of women in the key investment and decisión-making roles in finance is that “pink” elephant. While women are represented at 33%, 37%, and 63% in the law, medical, and accounting professions, respectively (Morningstar 2016), the percentage of female investment decision-makers in investment pales in comparison at less than 10%. And it gets worse if we look at sub-sectors. Take private equity, it’s 6% (Lietz, 2011), hedge funds at 3% (Soloway, 2011), or investment banking documented in this scorecard, at a global median of 0%.

Are Financial Crises Predictable?

Who among us wouldn't want to be the savior that predicts a market crisis and saves our clients from losses in capital -- or even better -- profits from them? A central topic of interest for academics is whether there are more precise tools to predict financial crises. Those who believe so dedicate their efforts to finding early warning indicators.

Behavioral Finance: Does Culture Affect Equity Analysts?

The literature shows that where we come from affects both how we perceive other people as well as how we are perceived by others. These perceptions can also affect economic behavior. In this study, the author analyzes the role of cultural biases in analysts’ stock recommendations in Europe.

Who Bears the Cost of Machine Learning in Credit Markets?

The primary idea behind this research is that a more sophisticated statistical technology (in the sense of reducing predictive mean squared error) produces predictions with greater variance than a more primitive technology. These technologies range from a simple logistic regression of default outcomes based on borrowers and default variables to random forest machine learning models. Said differently, improvements in predictive technology act as mean-preserving spreads for predicted outcomes—in this case, predicted default propensities on loans, which also means that there will always be some borrowers considered less risky by the new technology, or “winners”, while other borrowers will be deemed riskier “losers”, relative to their position under the pre-existing technology.

Female Representation in the Academic Finance Profession

To date, there is no large-sample empirical evidence on gender balance and career outcomes in academic finance. Though we have looked into and observed where are the women in finance and women in the C-Suite. This paper specifically looks to proved insight into the statistics of female representation in the academic arena of finance.

Empowering Investors Through Education Actually Works!

Empowering investors through education is a foundational tenet of our firm and a big reason why we write these posts. The article we cover here is a meta-analysis 76 randomized studies on the impacts and design of financial education, a topic we've hit on before. It' almost cliche now to hear parents and educators demand schools take the initiative to make financial education a high priority. However, it's reasonable to ask, does financial education even work?

Interesting Insights into How Endowments Invest

Despite their popularity and the ease of access to university-based endowments, there is little in the academic literature about the history of endowment investing. In this article, the authors aim at filling this gap.

Do Mutual Funds Increase Disclosure Complexity to Hide Fees?

Do mutual funds create unnecessarily complex disclosures and fee structures to obfuscate weak net performance? Yes.

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About Elisabetta Basilico, PhD, CFA

Are You Ready to Become a Better Investor?

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elisabettabasilico

About Elisabetta Basilico, PhD, CFA

Are You Ready to Become a Better Investor?

Important Disclosures