Quant Mashup - Alpha Architect A Deep Dive into the Low Beta Premium [Alpha Architect]One of the big problems for the first formal asset pricing model developed by financial economists, the CAPM, was that it predicts a positive relationship between risk and return. However, empirical studies have found the actual relationship to be basically flat, or even negative. In addition,(...) Are Financial Crises Predictable? [Alpha Architect]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(...) Factor Investing Premiums and the Economic Cycle [Alpha Architect]Academic research has found that factor premiums are both time-varying and dependent on the economic cycle. For example, the authors of the 2017 study “Fama-French Factors and Business Cycles” examined the behavior of six Fama-French factors—market beta (MKT), size (SMB), value (HML), momentum(...) New Accounting Standards and Factor Investing [Alpha Architect]How well do quantitative investors navigate around the changes to the accounting standards that are endemic to the financial data used in quantitative strategies? The numbers reported on financial statements are wholly governed by regulation and by each firm’s interpretation of those accounting(...) Factor Investing: Are Internally Generated Intangibles Worthless? [Alpha Architect]As mind-bending as it sounds, although a company’s internally generated intangible investments generate future value, they are currently not accepted as assets under US GAAP. Omission of this increasingly important class of assets reduces the usefulness and relevance of financial statement(...) Does diversification always benefit investors? No. [Alpha Architect]Diversification has been around since the early 1950s and is often considered a “free lunch” in finance. But is that actually the case? We’ve highlighted here and here that the reality is more complicated than the theory. Consider the two basic assumptions about correlations in the context of(...) Factor Investing: Is a Human Capital Factor on the Horizon? [Alpha Architect]From 1991 to 2018, capital expenditures as a percentage of total sales remained relatively flat, at about 10 percent. On the other hand, personnel expenses almost doubled during that time. In fact, by 2018 personnel expenses (the costs for hiring, wages, salaries, and bonuses; social security and(...) Trend-Following Filters – Part 5 [Alpha Architect]Previous articles in this series examine, from a digital signal processing (DSP) frequency domain perspective, various types of digital filters used by quantitative analysts and market technicians to analyze and transform financial time series for trend-following purposes. An Introduction to Digital(...) The Fed Put is Alive and Well [Alpha Architect]The question of whether or not the FED considers or responds to the stock market in its policy decisions has been studied fairly extensively, however, the subject of the existence of the “FED put” continues to pop up in the literature. In this particular revival of the issue, the authors are(...) Is The Value Premium Smaller Than We Thought? [Alpha Architect]From 2017 through March 2020, the relative performance of value stocks in the U.S. was so poor, experiencing its largest drawdown in history, that many investors jumped to the conclusion that the value premium was dead. It is certainly possible that what economists call a “regime change” could(...) What Explains the Momentum Factor? Frog-in-the Pan is Still the King [Alpha Architect]A lot of ink has been spilled on a seemingly simple question: Why does the momentum factor exist? We have done our fair share contributing to the question and our collective conclusions are in our book Quantitative Momentum. We walked away from the question and determined the following: We will(...) Portfolio Strategies for Volatility Investing [Alpha Architect]The most basic tenet of financial theory is that risk and expected return are related. One widely used measure of risk is volatility. As far back as 1976, with the publication of Fischer Black’s “Studies of Stock Price Volatility Changes,” financial economists have known that volatility and(...) The Best Strategies for Dealing with Inflation? Factors and Trend-Following [Alpha Architect]Inflation — what’s that? … It has been quite a while since inflation has been considered a problem. Today, however, the angst surrounding the possibility of a resurgence in inflation is real and “top of mind” for investors. If the current fear becomes a reality, how should investors react?(...) Factor Investing in Sovereign Bond Markets [Alpha Architect]In our 2016 book “Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investor” Andrew Berkin and I recommended that due to the risks of data mining (or p-hacking)—researchers torture the data until it confesses—for you to consider investing in a factor it should have demonstrated a premium that was:(...) Trend-Following Filters – Part 4 [Alpha Architect]Previous articles in this series examine, from a digital signal processing (DSP) frequency domain perspective, various types of digital filters used by quantitative analysts and market technicians to analyze and transform financial time series for trend-following purposes. An Introduction to Digital(...) Asset Allocation and Private Market (i.e. illiquid) Investing [Alpha Architect]Allocations to illiquid assets(1) have become increasingly popular, thus requiring asset managers to consider portfolio-wide liquidity characteristics. Although determining the price of illiquidity is a challenge for investors, the construction of a portfolio that includes liquidity constraints can(...) What Do Mutual Fund Investors Really Care About? [Alpha Architect]Itzhak Ben-David, Jiacui Li, Andrea Rossi, and Yang Song contribute to the literature on the behavior of individual investors with their July 2021 study “What Do Mutual Fund Investors Really Care About?”, published in the July 2021 issue of The Review of Financial Studies. They began by noting(...) Understanding Momentum Investing [Alpha Architect]Momentum, the tendency of past winner stocks to outperform past loser stocks over the next several months, is one of the most well-documented and well-researched asset pricing anomalies. In our book, “Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing,” Andrew Berkin and I present the evidence of a(...) Our Top 5 Geeky Finance Posts for 2021 [Alpha Architect]We are calling it quits for the holidays. Most of us have kids and Santa is coming to town! We’ll talk about research and educate investors next week. Here are the Top 5 content pieces this year (Based on traffic): Even God would get fired as an Active Investor Does Gamma Hedging Actually Affect(...) Value investing: What history says about five-year periods after valuation peaks [Alpha Architect]No matter how you slice it, Value stocks are historically cheap compared to the past. There have been numerous articles on this topic, such as Ryan’s post here, Larry Swedroe’s post here, and more recently, Cliff Asness’ post here. Cliff’s post is one picture, shown below. 1 Source:(...) The Relationship Between the Value Premium and Interest Rates [Alpha Architect]Value stocks sharply underperformed growth stocks from 2017 to 2020, exacerbating a longer period of lackluster performance dating back to the Global Financial Crisis. The Death of Systemic Value Investing is not new news for frequent readers of the blog nor are the possible pathways to Resurrecting(...) You Thought P-Hacking was Bad? Let's talk about "Non-Standard Errors" [Alpha Architect]Most readers are familiar with p-hacking and the so-called replication crisis in financial research (see here, here, and here for differing views). Some claim that these research challenges are driven by a desire to find ‘positive’ results in the data because these results get published, whereas(...) Size, Value, Profitability, and Investment Factors in International Stocks [Alpha Architect]The current workhorse asset pricing model is the Fama-French five-factor model (2015), which added the profitability and investment factors to their original (1992) three factors of market beta, size, and value—increasing the model’s explanatory power. Nusret Cakici and Adam Zaremba contribute(...) Can Prospect Theory Explain the Value and Momentum Factors? [Alpha Architect]Traditional finance academics lean towards risk-based models to explain why various return characteristics, such as value and momentum, predict returns. But there is another school of thought often referred to as ‘behavioral finance.’ This field has some of its own ideas (see below) on why(...) Should We Never Invest in Individual Stocks? [Alpha Architect]Hendrik Bessembinder published a fascinating paper, which finds that nearly all publicly traded stocks in the U.S. — if held as buy and hold investments — underperform Treasury bills. This finding is incredibly surprising and interesting. Of course, when bold claims are made, they tend to(...) The Value of the Value Factor: Cheaper now than a year ago? [Alpha Architect]About a year and a half ago, after one of the worst relative drawdowns the value factor has ever seen, I wrote a piece showing the value factor was cheap relative to history. Since then, value strategies are on a solid run (look at pretty much any type of value strategy and I think you’d agree).(...) Chasing Low Beta Loses Alpha [Alpha Architect]One of the big problems for the first formal asset pricing model developed by financial economists, the CAPM, was that it predicts a positive relationship between risk and return. However, empirical studies have found the actual relationship to be basically flat, or even negative. Over the last 50(...) Factor Investing Deep Dive with Jack Vogel [Alpha Architect]Ben and Cameron, which host the excellent Rational Reminder podcast, sit down with Jack Vogel and go through a laundry list of factor investing questions. The topics discussed: 0:27 Do long-only factor premiums survive transaction costs? 2:28 Would the market impact of rebalancing a fund like MTUM(...) The Vanishing Illiquidity Premium [Alpha Architect]Liquidity—the ability to buy and sell significant quantities of a given asset quickly, at low cost, and without a major price concession—is valuable to investors. Therefore, they demand a premium as compensation for the greater risks and costs of investing in less-liquid securities. For example,(...) How Crazy is the Current Market? Not that Crazy. [Alpha Architect]Eric Balchunas had a recent tweet that I found fascinating. Eric’s tweet merely captures the tip of the iceberg with respect to the current market environment, which certainly feels “bubbly.” 1 The gist of the tweet is that $META, which is an ETF from our friends over at Roundhill Investments,(...) US Funds Have Surprisingly Large International Exposure [Alpha Architect]Did you know that the percentage of foreign sales of the FTSE 100 is 76% and 43% for the SP500? This study investigates the power of indirect international exposure, that is international exposure through holdings of domestic stocks. The authors ask the following: What is the indirect international(...) Using Machine Learning to Predict Options Returns [Alpha Architect]Though classical option pricing models assume that options are redundant assets, more recent research rejects this idea. However, research on cross-sectional predictors of option returns is relatively scarce and not very well understood. Contrarily, extensive literature examines cross-sectional(...) Do factors have a role in asset allocation? [Alpha Architect]What is the role of factors in asset allocation? Should investors substitute factor exposures for asset classes in constructing strategic portfolios? Or should factors be used as an instrument to enhance the performance of asset class-based allocation schemes? There are still quite a few questions(...) A History of Wealth Creation in the U.S. Equity Markets [Alpha Architect]Hendrik Bessembinder contributes to the literature on the returns to public equity investment diversification benefits with his study “Wealth Creation in the US Public Stock Markets 1926-2019,” published in the April 2021 issue of The Journal of Investing. The study updated his 2018 paper, “Do(...) The Impact of ESG Scores on Asset Prices [Alpha Architect]Sustainable investing has grown substantially in recent years, demonstrating that investor demand can be driven by nonfinancial issues such as environmental (E), social (S), and governance (G) characteristics. A full list of our posts on ESG can be found here. The demand from investors who have a(...) Do Big Value Spreads Mean Big Returns to Value Strategies? [Alpha Architect]Okay, we can’t keep it a secret, we are fans of value investing 1 So when Cliff Asness and his team at AQR write about value, we get excited. The analysis reported in this research confirms the relationship between static value strategies and future returns while incorporating the notion that the(...) ETF Liquidity Risks? A Discussion [Alpha Architect]Because of the complexity inherent to ETF trading in the secondary market, there are frequent misunderstandings about the relationship between the liquidity of the underlying securities and the liquidity of ETFs. Sometimes we hear that ETFs have excess liquidity to the underlying and at others, ETFs(...) Studying Financial Idea "Infection Rates" [Alpha Architect]Previously, we have written about the Momentum of News, which highlights that lots of positive news can lead to future positive returns (without a look-ahead bias!). Today’s post builds on the concept that news (and sentiment?) are predictive for returns — which sounds intuitive. The writers of(...) Value Investing and Intangibles [Alpha Architect]Recent research, including the 2020 studies “Explaining the Recent Failure of Value Investing” and “Intangible Capital and the Value Factor: Has Your Value Definition Just Expired?,” have investigated the impact on U.S. value strategies of the increase in the relative importance of(...) Macro risks and the term structure of interest rates [Alpha Architect]The authors of this paper identify aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks for the US economy utilizing macroeconomic data on inflation, real GDP growth, core inflation, and the unemployment gap. They then go on to extract how these shocks to supply and demand impact the term structure of(...) Crowding and Factor Premiums [Alpha Architect]My March 23, 2021, article for Alpha Architect addressed the issue that in recent years the field of empirical finance has faced challenges from papers arguing that there is a replication crisis because the majority of studies cannot be replicated and/or their findings are the result of multiple(...) ESG Ratings are Noisy. Buyer Beware [Alpha Architect]ESG products have been flooding the market and it is difficult for investors to assess the ground truth. To make matters worse, with limited sample size periods and datasets, trying to determine “evidence-based” ESG insights, is challenging. Nonetheless, we’ve been covering the academic(...) Is Currency Momentum Factor Momentum? [Alpha Architect]A large body of evidence, including the studies “Is There Momentum in Factor Premia? Evidence from International Equity Markets,” Factor Momentum Everywhere (Summary)” and “Factor Momentum and the Momentum Factor,” has demonstrated that momentum exists across financial markets (stocks,(...) Is The Value Premium Smaller Than We Thought? [Alpha Architect]From 2017 through March 2020, the relative performance of value stocks in the U.S. was so poor, experiencing its largest drawdown in history, that many investors jumped to the conclusion that the value premium was dead. It is certainly possible that what economists call a “regime change” could(...) Do Cryptocurrencies Improve Portfolio Diversification? [Alpha Architect]Portfolio diversification benefits are often driven by correlation coefficients, but this analysis can get complicated, fast. Over time academics and practitioners have realized that it is not enough to simply calculate a correlation using short return intervals (daily?, monthly?) over a sample(...) Factor Timing Is Tempting [Alpha Architect]Academic research has found that factor premiums are both time-varying and dependent on the economic cycle. For example, Arnav Sheth, and Tee Lim, authors of the December 2017 study “Fama-French Factors and Business Cycles,” examined the behavior of six Fama-French factors—market beta (MKT),(...) Mutual Funds: Negative $125B in Value-Add? [Alpha Architect]Elton, Gruber, and Busse (2004) as well as Hortacsu and Syverson (2004) suggest that mutual fund markets are not perfectly competitive and that fees do matter to investors. In contrast, the neoclassical view of mutual funds (see for example Berk and Green, 2004; Pastor, Stambaugh and Taylor, 2019(...) International Tests of Factor Anomalies: Most Don’t Survive [Alpha Architect]Since the development of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) about 50 years ago, academic researchers have documented hundreds of “anomalies” that generate significant positive alpha. There are now so many that economist John Cochrane, in his 2011 presidential address to the American Finance(...) The Value Premium Might be Smaller Than We Originally Thought [Alpha Architect]Remember HML? It was the original formulation for estimating the “value” premium published by Fama & French in 1992. In that seminal article, FF argued based on the results they obtained, that the risk of owning equity is multidimensional. One of those dimensions of risk they used was(...) The Impact of Goodwill on Stock Returns [Alpha Architect]A firm’s stock price should reflect the value of both its tangible and intangible capital. While tangible capital has been widely studied, intangible capital has been receiving more attention due to its increasing importance in economic values. According to a December 29, 2020, Forbes article,(...)