Game On: Social Networks and Markets
This article studies how investment ideas can propagate through a social network and affect market behavior and prices.
How factor exposure changes over time: a study of Information Decay
Factor strategies need to be rebalanced in order to maintain their factor exposure. But different factors decay at different rates and this affects how they should be rebalanced. For example, momentum needs to be rebalanced more than value. This study digs into these questions.
Merger Arbitrage as Diversification Strategy
Merger arbitrage is an investment style in which investors seek to buy shares of firms that are acquisition targets with the objective of realizing the difference between the amount for which the target is being acquired and the stock price of the target shortly after the acquisition is announced. The stock price of the target company typically sells below the acquisition price, reflecting the uncertainty of the deal being completed (the arbitrage spread). Betting on mergers is a classic hedge fund arbitrage strategy.
Trend-Following Filters – Part 6
This article analyzes six trend-following indicators from a digital signal processing (DSP) frequency domain perspective in which the indicators are considered as digital filters and their frequency response characteristics are determined.
Index Investing and the Informational Efficiency of Stock Prices
This article studies whether index investing has implications for the informational efficiency of stock prices.
Combining Reversals with Time-Series Momentum Strategies
Jiadong Liu and Fotis Papailias contribute to the momentum literature with their study “Time Series Reversal in Trend-Following Strategies,” published in the January 2023 issue of “European Financial Management,” in which they examined the reversal property of various financial assets.
How Did the FTX collapse Affect Traditional Assets?
In this study, the impact of the FTX collapse and bankruptcy is investigated across global financial markets.
Is a Naive 1/N Diversification Strategy Efficient?
A simple 1/N factor diversification strategy will likely be at least as efficient as more “sophisticated” versions.
Institutional Investors’ Impact on Factor Premiums
For anomalies that are risk-based, that is what we should expect to see because, while risk cannot be arbitraged away, cash flows can reduce the size of the premium. For the anomalies that are behavioral based, it appears that limits to arbitrage are still sufficient to allow them to persist post-publication.
Comparing past and present inflation rates can be tricky
The objective of this article is to build better estimates of CPI headline and core inflation values so inflation comparisons over time are more reliable. The run-up in inflation we are currently experiencing is difficult to contextualize because it is inconsistent with past practices, weights on expenditures have changed, and the treatment of housing costs.
Research and Development, Expected Profitability, and Expected Returns
Regardless of the model used, an anomaly for all models is that the empirical evidence demonstrates that stocks with high research and development (R&D) expenses have delivered a premium.
Artificial Intelligence: the Past, the Present and the Future
This article examines the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI). We examine its history with an eye toward what it may mean for the world in years to come.
Are Short Covering Trades Informative?
The importance of the role played by short sellers has received increasing academic attention in recent years. Short sellers help keep market prices efficient by preventing overpricing and the formation of price bubbles in financial markets. Market efficiency is important because an efficient market allocates capital efficiently. If short sellers were inhibited from expressing their views on valuations, securities prices could become overvalued and excess capital would be allocated to those firms.
Can We Improve Momentum Factor Investing via Salience Theory?
The contribution of salience theory to the theory of asset pricing turns out to be quite a profitable insight for momentum strategies.
Intangibles and the Value Factor
This figure shows the long, short and long-short leg performance of the intangible value factor in comparison to the traditional value factor. The performance is shown for each of the four regions: U.S., Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific between June 1983 and December 2021. The monthly returns are ex-post volatility scaled to 5% p.m
Does International Diversification Work?
In this article, the authors examine the research on the benefits of international diversification. Some argue that because equity markets generally crash simultaneously, there are no benefits to having equity diversification. The evidence from this paper rejects this hypothesis.
Inside the Minds of Expected Stock Returns
Non-traditional investor preferences play an important role in explaining the cross-section of expected stock returns.
How Pervasive is Corporate Fraud?
In this article, we examine the research on the pervasiveness of corporate fraud (misconduct or alleged fraud), which is one of the (less emphasized) costs of public ownership.
It’s Always Darkest Just Before Dawn
Wide divergences between the valuations of cheap stocks relative to expensive stocks have preceded significant outperformance for value over the subsequent decade, as shown in this figure.
Do Gender Pay-Gap Disclosures Make a Difference?
The verdict is still out on the impact of legislation regarding firm disclosure rules on the gender pay gap (GPG). Results from recently published research are mixed.