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Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/29/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Friday, 06/29/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • Loss aversion is not a behavioral bias [EP Chan]

    In his famous book "Thinking, Fast and Slow", the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman described one common example of a behavioral finance bias: "You are offered a gamble on the toss of a [fair] coin. If the coin shows tails, you lose $100. If the coin shows heads, you win $110. Is this gamble attractive? Would you accept it?" (I have modified the numbers to be more realistic in a
  • Podcast: Momentum in Theory, Momentum in Practice [Alpha Architect]

    Here is a link to our podcast on Flirting with Models. Today I am speaking with Jack Vogel, co-CIO of boutique ETF issuer Alpha Architect. Ive known Jack for some time now and was particularly excited to bring him on the show for two reasons. The first, which you will quickly learn in the episode, is his near encyclopedic knowledge of investing literature. Ive met few investors who have both
  • This 2-Day Pattern Suggests the Bulls May Have A Short-Term Edge [Quantifiable Edges]

    On Wednesday the bulls tried to make a move higher and failed, making for a higher high and a lower close. On Thursday the opposite happened. The bears failed in their attempt at a move lower. A study from the Quantifinder looked at 2-day moves like this. I found results to be substantially different based on whether the market is near the top or the bottom of its short-term range. When the
  • The Evolution of Investing [Dual Momentum]

    I began my investment career in 1974. In 1976 I left a large retail brokerage firm to join a premier investment bank. I had both retail and institutional clients. So I had a well-rounded knowledge of Wall Street. The 1970s was soon after the dark ages of investing. Modern portfolio theory existed in the academic but not the real world. Looking at how investing has progressed since then, I thought
  • Research Review | 29 June 2018 | Factor Investing [Capital Spectator]

    When Does Cap-Weighting Outperform? Factor-Based Explanations Roger G Clarke (Ensign Peak Advisors), et al. May 1, 2018 Equity mutual fund performance can be partially explained by commonly-followed equity market factors, and the proposition that fund managers in the aggregate have more equally-weighted positions that the capitalization weighted market. Currently, the aggregate mutual funds

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/28/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Thursday, 06/28/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • Julia Build any time resolution using 1 minute data [Flare 9x]

    Reliable data makes for more accurate models. It is not the end of the world if there are minor discrepancies although data does need to be representative to build models and make good assumptions. Common data errors are known to be found at market closing times. We want the auction price not the last price. Last price might be some fluff trade with 1 lot. We want the real close or the auction
  • Excerpt, Part I: Quantitative Investment Portfolio Analytics In R [Capital Spectator]

    Heres an excerpt from my new book, Quantitative Investment Portfolio Analytics In R: An Introduction To R For Modeling Portfolio Risk and Return, which was published last week. In this two-part excerpt of Chapter 5, well look at a basic procedure for downloading factor premia from Professor Ken Frenchs web site to run a simple factor analysis using R code. Ill publish the second half
  • Explaining the Beta Anomaly [Alpha Architect]

    The superior performance of low-beta and low-volatility stocks was documented in the literature back in the 1970s by Fischer Black (in 1972) among others even before the size and value premiums were discovered. The low-beta/low-volatility anomaly has been demonstrated to exist in equity markets around the globe. Ive already written about the low-volatility (i.e., low-risk or
  • Bootstrapping time series data [Quant Dare]

    For those of us working with time series, the autocorrelation function (ACF) is a fundamental tool to understand how the values in a series correlate with others certain distance away. Indeed, we could even say that autocorrelation plots (a.k.a correlogram) are probably the most common visualizations in econometrics and time series analysis. This is why functions to compute and plot the ACF are

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/27/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Wednesday, 06/27/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • Norgate Data Review [Alvarez Quant Trading]

    I am frequently asked what data provider I use and recommend for stocks. I have been using Norgate Data for four years and recommend them to anyone looking for data. This review will focus on US Stocks and AmiBroker integration which is what I use daily. Norgate Data has data for the Australian and US markets, forex and futures data. They integrate with AmiBroker and RightEdge. Disclosures: I have
  • Flirting with Models Podcast [Flirting with Models]

    It's finally here: the first season of the Flirting with Models podcast, the show that aims to pull back the curtain and meet the people who design, develop, and manage quantitative investment strategies. This season titled Boutiques & Bloggers is a series of conversations with boutique asset managers and ETF issuers. Topics covered include: Can investing in special situations be
  • R in Finance [Eran Raviv]

    The yearly R in Finance conference is one of my favorites: 1. Titans of the R community are there every year. This year the founder of Rstudio (but much more really), JJ Allaire was a keynote speaker. He gave a talk about Machine Learning with TensorFlow and R. 2. Single track. I like everything, dont make me choose. 3. No questions! A definite +.. :). 4. They have this speedy 6 mins

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/23/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Saturday, 06/23/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • VIX term structure as a trading signal [SR SV]

    The VIX futures curve reflects expectations of future implied volatility of S&P500 index options. The slope of the curve is indicative of expected volatility and uncertainty relative to volatility and uncertainty priced in the market at present. Loosely speaking, a steeply upward sloped VIX futures curve should be indicative of present market complacency, while an inverted downward sloped
  • Trust the Process [Alpha Architect]

    As a native Philadelphian and huge basketball fan, I fully agree with the 76ers fans rally cry Trust the Process. Even the players, such as Joel Embiid, have echoed the sentiment of the fans: For those not in Philly and not too familiar with the NBA, Trust the Process explains the 76ers rebuilding process under former GM Sam Hinkie. If one simply goes to Google and types in Trust

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/21/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Thursday, 06/21/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • CAPE of Good Hope? P/E Divergence as a Performance Signal [EconomPic]

    Lawrence Hamtil recently shared a Vanguard paper with me that was surprising given it indicated the trailing twelve month price-to-earnings ratio "TTM P/E" was nearly as strong a predictor of forward 10-year equity returns as the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings "CAPE" ratio going back to 1926. My assumption had been that the CAPE ratio (which uses smoothed 10-year real

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/20/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Wednesday, 06/20/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • Curse of dimensionality part 3: Higher-Order Comoments [Eran Raviv]

    Higher moments such as Skewness and Kurtosis are not as explored as they should be. These moments are crucial for managing portfolio risk. At least as important as volatility, if not more. Skewness relates to asymmetry risk and Kurtosis relates to tail risk. Despite their great importance, those higher moments enjoy only a small portion of attention compared with their lower more friendly moments:

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/19/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Tuesday, 06/19/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • A Simple Momentum Strategy [Jonathan Kinlay]

    Momentum trading strategies span a diverse range of trading ideas. Often they will use indicators to determine the recent underlying trend and try to gauge the strength of the trend using measures of the rate of change in the price of the asset. One very simple momentum concept, a strategy in S&P500 E-Mini futures, is described in the following blog post: The basic idea is to buy the
  • Are Currently Used Significance Levels for Investment Strategies Too Strict? [Quantpedia]

    Most papers in the financial literature estimate the p-value associated with an investment strategy, without reporting the power of the test used to make that discovery. This is a mistake, because a particularly low false positive rate (Type I error) may be achieved at the expense of missing a large proportion of the investment opportunities (Type II error). In this paper we provide analytic

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/18/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Monday, 06/18/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • My R Book On Portfolio Analytics Has Been Published [Capital Spectator]

    Quantitative Investment Portfolio Analytics In R: An Introduction To R For Modeling Portfolio Risk and Return rolled off the presses earlier today for the first time. The book is currently available as a softback title. Stay tuned for details on an upcoming Kindle version. Meantime, after nearly four years of writing in my spare time, Im thrilled (and relieved) to announce that my third
  • Sector vs Country Momentum [Factor Research]

    The Momentum strategy can be applied to stocks, sectors and countries Sector and country Momentum portfolios generate positive excess returns However, cross sector & country and single stock Momentum portfolios generate higher risk-return ratios INTRODUCTION When a graduate joins the M&A division of an investment bank in Europe he or she often has to decide between a country or sector
  • A Smarter CAPE Ratio to Better Forecast Expected Stock Returns [Alpha Architect]

    What are the research questions? The authors propose and test an enhanced Shiller model that incorporates macroeconomic conditions, by modeling real bond yields and volatility, equity volatility and inflation, in a 2 step approach to forecasting equity returns. The underlying thesis is that the level of mean reversion in the CAPE ratio varies with the state of the economy and is not a fixed
  • Inferring the Statistics of Buffett’s Alpha [Flirting with Models]

    Buffetts alpha over the past 38 years has been an astounding 10% annualized, making him a prime example of investment discipline and skill. Through a statistical lens, the probability of having a track record this solid is extremely small. However, given enough investors mimicking Buffetts style, one should emerge with a track record close to Buffetts. Unfortunately, real world
  • Weak Week After June Opex [Quantifiable Edges]

    I noted a few years ago here on the blog that the week after June options expiration has done especially poorly in recent years. The table below is updated and shows all such weeks dating back to 1999. 2018-06-18 Those are some pretty weak numbers. Below is a 5-day profit curve. 2018-06-18-2 As you can see, it has been quite a streak of bearishness. Twelve out of the last fourteen years have

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/16/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Saturday, 06/16/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • FX carry strategies (part 2): Hedging [SR SV]

    There is often a strong case for hedging FX carry trades against unrelated global market factors. It is usually not difficult to hedge currency positions at least partly against global directional risk and against moves in the EURUSD exchange rate. The benefits of these hedges are [1] more idiosyncratic and diversifiable currency trades and, [2] a more realistic assessment of the actual

Quantocracy’s Daily Wrap for 06/15/2018

This is a summary of links featured on Quantocracy on Friday, 06/15/2018. To see our most recent links, visit the Quant Mashup. Read on readers!

  • Download Intraday Stock Data with IEX and Parquet [Black Arbs]

    IEX is a relatively new exchange (founded in 2012). For our purposes, what makes them different from other exchanges is they provide a robust FREE API to query their stock exchange data. As a result we can leverage the pandas-datareader framework to query IEX data quite simply. WHY PARQUET? Apache Parquet is a columnar storage format available to any project in the Hadoop ecosystem, regardless
  • Are Investors Becoming Better at Fund Picking? [Quantpedia]

    This study analyzes how the determinants of mutual fund investor cash flows have changed over time, and the associated impact on investor returns. Using data from 1992-2016 we find that investor return-chasing behavior essentially disappeared starting in 2011. Investor flows have become more sensitive to expenses, past risk and alpha. Investors are paying more attention to fund characteristics