Markets’ neglect of macro news
Empirical evidence suggests that investors pay less attention to macroeconomic news when market sentiment is positive. Market responses to economic data surprises have historically...
The relation between value and momentum strategies
Simple value and momentum strategies often end up with opposite market positions. One strategy succeeds when the other fails. There are two plausible reasons...
The fundamental value trap
Fundamental value seems like a straightforward investment approach. One simply looks for assets that are “cheap” or “expensive” relative to their rationally expected risk-adjusted...
Equity values and credit spreads: the inflation effect
A theoretical paper shows that a downward shift in expected inflation increases equity valuations and credit default risk at the same time. The reason...
The predictability of market-wide earnings revisions
Forward earnings yields are a key metric for the valuation of an equity market. Helpfully, I/B/E/S and DataStream publish forward earnings forecasts of analysts...
Earnings yields, equity carry and risk premia
Forward earnings yields and equity carry are plausible indicators of risk premia embedded in equity index futures prices. Data for a panel of 25...
Seasonal effects in commodity futures curves
Seasonal fluctuations are evident for many commodity prices. However, their exact size can be quite uncertain. Hence, seasons affect commodity futures curves in two...
Term premia and macro factors
The fixed income term premium is the difference between the yield of a longer-maturity bond and the average expected risk-free short-term rate for that...
The predictability of relative asset returns
Empirical research suggests that it is easier to predict relative returns within an asset class than to predict absolute returns. Also, out-of-sample value generation...
Critical transitions in financial markets
Critical transitions in financial markets are shifts in prices and operational structure to a new equilibrium after reaching a tipping point. “Complexity theory” helps...
RECENT ARTICLES
Accounting data as investment factors
Corporate balance sheet data are important building blocks of quantitative-fundamental (“quantamental”) investment factors. However, accounting terms are easily misunderstood and confused with economic concepts....
Diversified reward-risk parity
Risk parity is a portfolio construction technique that seeks to equalize risk contributions from the different components of the portfolio. Risk parity with respect...
A market-to-book formula for equity strategies
A new proxy formula for equity market-to-book ratios suggests that (the logarithm of) such a ratio is equal to the discounted expected value of...