Our Global Value Momentum Trend Index ("GVMT" or "GVMT Index") is a globally diversified equity strategy that leverages trend-following to manage tail-risks. The strategy can be summarized as follows: Turns out that this [...]
Simple timing rules, focused on absolute and trending asset class performance, seem to be useful in a downside protection context. Our analysis of the downside protection model (DPM), applied on various market indices, indicates there is a possibility of lowering maximum drawdown risk, while also offering a chance to participate in the upside associated with a given asset class. Important to note, applying the DPM to a portfolio will not eliminate volatility and the portfolio will deviate (perhaps wildly) from standard benchmarks. For many investors, these are risky propositions and should be considered when using a DPM construct.
Were in the middle of an academic research project and we ran a simple long-term trend-following model from January 1, 1801 to September 30, 2015. Recently, there has been some research on the performance of trend-following rules [...]
In this article, we discuss why trusting an investment process can be very hard, and how you should approach the challenge. Trust the Process - the 76ers fans' rally cry As a native Philadelphian and [...]
Trend-following strategies have historically been laughed at via the modern academic finance research community. Having first-hand knowledge of that community, we can verify that academic researchers are humans like the rest of us (we checked, [...]
Executive Summary Factor investing promises outperformance at low cost. But to add value in a portfolio, it must deliver positive risk-adjusted returns and with low correlation to existing holdings. Historically, pure factor exposures have earned [...]
When it comes to trend following and/or time-series momentum research, we got ya covered! A few places to dig in: Evidence for Long-Term Trend-Following by Alpha ArchitectWorld's Longest Trend-Following backtest by Alpha ArchitectDiversification Benefits of Time Series [...]
Trend-following is something I've struggled with for years -- always felt like voodoo magic and data-mining. That said, I finally came around to appreciating the practice after a ton of research replication efforts, independent research. [...]
Similar to some better-known factors like size and value, time-series momentum is a factor that historically has demonstrated above average excess returns. Time-series momentum, also called trend-momentum or absolute momentum, is measured by a portfolio long assets that have had recent positive returns and short assets that have had recent negative returns. Compare this to the traditional (cross-sectional) momentum factor that considers recent asset performance only relative to other assets. The academic evidence suggests that inclusion of a strategy targeting time-series momentum in a portfolio improves the portfolio’s risk-adjusted returns.
Andrew Miller, a regulator contributor to the blog, is passionate about the intersection of academic finance research and financial planning. We obviously love the academic finance research stuff, but our financial planning advice lacks serious [...]
Skewness is a statistical measure of how returns behave in the tails of a probability distribution. Wikipedia has a more robust definition of skewness with some good visuals here. If an investment (e.g., stocks) has negative [...]
Similar to some better-known factors like size and value, time-series momentum is a factor which has historically demonstrated above-average excess returns. Time-series momentum, also called trend momentum or trend-following, is measured by a portfolio which [...]
Jack did a nice recap on a momentum paper last week that looks at using fundamentals (revenue volatility, low cost of goods, and B/M) to help identify the best price momentum stocks. This paper sounds similar to the paper Jack reviewed, but there is a key difference: the researchers are looking at the momentum of the fundamentals, not the absolute value of the fundamentals. The authors compile a fundamental momentum variable by calculating the moving averages of 7 elements: return on equity return on assets earnings per share accrual-based operating profitability cash-based operating profitability gross profitability net payout ratio
The results are hypothetical results and are NOT an indicator of future results and do NOT represent returns that any investor actually attained. Indexes are unmanaged, do not reflect management or trading fees, and [...]
Media and Google: The Impact of Information Supply and Demand on Stock Returns by Yanbo Wang Yanbo identifies information into two buckets: News releases (supply) and Google search traffic (demand). A very rough synthesis of how the supply [...]
How do we identify who is a flash in the pan blogger versus the next Michael Kitces, Josh Brown, or Ben Carlson? We've tried to do our part and help to promote and share research from up and coming "undiscovered" bloggers/writers out there. In our early days, we were helped by long-time bloggers such as Meb Faber and Tadas Viskanta, so we try and return the favor. Recent examples of up and coming guest writers we've highlighted include Dan Sotiroff (now heading to Morningstar!), Aaron Brask, Andrew Miller, Elisabetta Basilico, and Dan Grioli -- all of whom have written interesting and insightful pieces!
A New Anomaly: The Cross-Sectional Profitability of Technical Analysis Yufeng Han, Ke Yang, and Guofu Zhou A version of the paper can be found here. Abstract: In this paper, we document that an application of [...]
In 2015, Cliff Asness made the case that to earn attractive returns with proper risk-based diversification and low correlation to traditional markets, investors need to embrace ‘the three dirty words in finance,’ which he defined [...]
One of the basic principles of technical analysis is that ``prices move in trends". Traders firmly believe that these trends can be identified in a timely manner and used to generate profits and limit losses. Consequently, trend following is the most widespread market timing strategy; it tries to jump on a trend and ride it. Specifically, when stock prices are trending upward (downward), it's time to buy (sell) the stock. Even though trend following is very simple in concept, its practical realization is complicated. One of the major difficulties is that stock prices fluctuate wildly due to imbalances between supply and demand and due to constant arrival of new information about company fundamentals. These up-and-down fluctuations make it hard to identify turning points in a trend. Moving averages are used to ``smooth" the stock price in order to highlight the underlying trend.
In this post we aim to give an overview of some specific types of moving averages. Specifically, we cover "ordinary" moving averages and mention some examples of exotic moving averages.