Local-currency import growth is a widely underestimated and important indicator of trends in fixed-income markets. Its predictive power reflects its alignment with economic trends that matter for monetary policy: domestic demand, inflation, and effective currency dynamics. Empirical evidence

Preferred income funds offer exceptionally high yields However, the higher the yield, the lower the total return The diversification benefits of these funds were limited INTRODUCTION Although the job of a stock analyst is not easy, fixed-income analysts have it arguably harder. Sure, there might be

Many factor investors are familiar with “small-cap value investing,” which is a reasonable allocation for long-term investors who can tolerate a lot of volatility. Why are there so many small-cap value investors? Small-cap value investors have been told that the value premium is higher, on

When researching fundamental factors, analyzing alpha shouldn't be your first step. You can save time and spot issues early by starting with a basic exploration of your factor's distribution and statistical properties, a process known as exploratory data analysis (EDA). This post looks at

In my post Linking Impact in Divergence Attribution I explained the need to use linking algorithms in order to aggregate single-period returns. I ended my exposition by setting out the formula for adjusted returns using Andrew Frongello’s algorithms (arguably the ones with best qualities in the

As a portfolio manager, of a mutual or dedicated fund, you have to regularly report the performance of your fund on a specific time frame (monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.). One of the common tools is the performance attribution analysis, which is a framework that allows to isolate the effect

Momentum strategies have been popular since the original Jagadeesh and Titman article was published in 1993. Variations on the strategies have employed calculating momentum on an individual and industry basis. For instance, in a 1999 study, Moskowitz and Grinblatt produced a positive and significant

This week is options expiration week. And we have known for a long time that opex is often a bullish week for the market. Interestingly, that seasonal tendency has not seemed to hold true since the COVID crash in 2020. Below is a look at performance of all opex weeks since 1984. Opex week

Ideally diversifying funds are uncorrelated and generate positive returns However, identifying such funds is more challenging than expected Creating a diversified portfolio requires thoughtful fund and asset class selection INTRODUCTION In our last research note (read Diversification versus

In this article we examine the research about how artificial intelligence influences stock returns by analyzing a measurement of firm-level AI exposures called Alness. AI Narrative and Stock Mispricing Arka Bandyopadhyay, Dat Mai, Kuntara Pukthuanthong SSRN, Working Paper A recent version of the

In his original 1991 article Investing in the 1990s1, John Bogle described a simple model to help investors setting reasonable expectations for long-term U.S. government bond returns. This model relies on what Bogle describes as the single most important factor in forecasting future total returns

While reading the January 2023 issue of Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities, I came across an article about Efficiency Ratio (ER) by Perry Kaufman. In the article, he discusses using ER to decide when to trade mean reversion strategy vs a trend following one. My curiosity on this was

Yet another experiment with ChatGPT-4: Active reading a semi-technical book. Chapter 1 Can a Combination of Treasuries and Equities Replace Credit in a Portfolio? What is the size of the corporate bond market? As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, I don’t have the most recent data on the

Financial markets are looking at a growing and broadening range of correlated time series for the operation of trading strategies. This increases the importance of latent factor models, i.e., methods that condense high-dimensional datasets into a low-dimensional group of factors that retain most of

Hedging and diversifying strategies have different objectives Downside betas can be used to differentiate these Alternative strategies have overtaken bonds as the most diversifying strategies INTRODUCTION In investing, some terms are used interchangeably, despite these having quite different

Science has been in a “replication crisis” for more than a decade. Researchers have discovered, over and over, that lots of findings in fields like psychology, sociology, medicine, and economics don’t hold up when other researchers try to replicate them. There are many interesting questions of

Negative exclusionary screening refers to an investment strategy in which socially controversial firms in particular sectors are excluded from the portfolio. The Global Sustainable Investment Review reports that, in 2020, more than $15 trillion (43% of total sustainable investments) were invested

Readers have asked for our take on “the single greatest predictor of future stock market returns”, aka the Aggregate Investor Allocation to Equities. This indicator was first shared by Philosophical Economics back in 2013, and recently resurrected by Portfolio Optimizer (two excellent sites you

Neither equity generalists nor sector specialists have generated alpha on average There is no consistency in alpha generation by either type of fund manager The most consistent alpha generators produced no alpha out-of-sample INTRODUCTION When I joined Citigroup as an analyst in their mergers &

Skewness is one of the less-known but practical measures from statistics that can be used in trading. It is defined as a measure of the asymmetry of the probability distribution of a random variable around its mean. Financial mathematics and most quantitative models assume some kind of symmetric

Another experiment with ChatGPT-4: Active reading a semi-technical book. This book by Michael Isichenko is probably the best I have read so far in this field. Let’s dive into it! You can (and should) buy this book. Chapter 1 Market Data Gautier’s Prompt: The author mentions in his book that

The past decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in spending on intangibles (not just research and development and advertising expenditures, but also expenses related to human capital) relative to tangible capital expenditures on plants and equipment. Given the change, it is not surprising that

We recently hosted our 6th Annual Democratize Quant Conference (sign up here for updates). This post is a recap of what we learned at the conference and some resources we can make available to the public. The agenda for the 2023 conference is outlined below: Date Time Topic Presenter Notes 5/18

Rotational trading is a strategy used by investors that involves purchasing top-performing assets and simultaneously selling the underperforming ones in their portfolio. It’s a great way to periodically manage a portfolio by holding winners and selling losers. Backtesting a rotational trading

This paper helps investors better understand drawdowns and recoveries, in terms of empirical facts, practical implications, and strategies for handling them. It shows the importance of the “interplay” between drawdowns and recoveries (which the authors call “submergence”), which should not

This research was inspired by Alpha Architect’s coverage of a new paper looking at how the distance from a stock’s 1-year high has affected the performance of momentum strategies and the likelihood of “momentum crashes”. We look at the same question applied to a stock index: the S&P 500.

In his 2013 post The Single Greatest Predictor of Future Stock Market Returns, Jesse Livermore1 from the blog Philosophical Economics introduced an indicator to forecast long-term U.S. stock market returns and empirically demonstrated that it outperformed all the commonly used stock market valuation

This a test of Mark Virag’s paper “Momentum Based Balancing for the Diversified Portfolio” (NAAIM Wagner Award winner, 2014). This is a relative momentum strategy that provides an interesting contrast to a popular strategy we track: FinancialMentor.com’s Optimum 3. More on this later.

Long-only trend following in equities was more effective than long-short trend following in the US Same for European and Asian stock markets Perhaps explained by the negative skewness of stock markets INTRODUCTION Imagine a world where economic growth is anemic. Governments and central banks do

In Reimagining Index Funds (Arnott, Brightman, Liu and Nguyen 2023), the authors propose a new methodology for forming an index fund, designed to avoid the “buy high, sell low” behavior that can emerge in traditional index funds while retaining the depth of liquidity and capacity. Specifically,

Abstract: In times of extreme macroeconomic events, including war, hyperinflation, or significant economic recessions, many investors believe gold investing is a safe haven. Is that belief warranted? Investors have concerns about the increased risks of inflation and a recession, Congress’ ability

Trend following can benefit from consideration of macro trends. One reason is that macroeconomic data indicate headwinds (or tailwinds) for the continuation of market price trends. This is particularly obvious in the foreign-exchange space. For example, the positive return trend of a currency is

In this article we will access the Polygon API and download a month of intraday minutely Forex data. We will show you how to access the API, creating a Python function that can be easily adapted to extract FX data for various pairs across different timespans. We will also create and visualise a

In a previous post, we saw how to use genetic algorithms to make implicit optimizations. We used that technique to construct a portfolio, but in a very simple manner: we were just limited to 5 stocks, and we were looking for a constant weight for each of them, assuming daily rebalancing. Today, we

Momentum crashes are a blight on the performance of momentum strategies. Although there has been a fair amount of research on the topic, few practical solutions have emerged to mitigate the impact on portfolios. In this study, the authors document the outperformance of momentum stocks, made somewhat

Emerging markets offer divergent factor exposures across and within regions Smart beta ETFs do not necessarily offer high factor exposures It is all about fund selection INTRODUCTION We highlighted previously that the case for exposure to emerging markets (“EM”) stocks is not as clear as

I recently upgraded my live production system to include all the extra instruments I've added on recently. I also did a little consolidation of trading rules, simplifying things slightly by removing some rules that didn't really have much allocation, and adding a couple from my new book.

Given the strong empirical evidence demonstrating the persistence, pervasiveness, robustness, and implementability of premiums for the factors of size, value, momentum, and profitability in the cross-section of returns, investors may be tempted to gain exposure to those factors across industries and

As the name implies, today we want to consider almost trivially simple models. Although the current trend points towards complex models, even for time-series models, I am still a big believer in simplicity. In particular, when your dataset is small, the subsequent ideas might be useful. To be fair,

In this blog post, I will demonstrate how to work with stock price data using the DuckDB database management system in R. DuckDB is a fast and lightweight analytical database engine that is designed to work with various programming languages, including R. You can use Duck DB from the command line or

The Gerber statistic is a measure of co-movement similar in spirit to the Kendall’s Tau coefficient that has been introduced in Gerber et al.1 to estimate correlation matrices within the Markowitz’s mean-variance framework. In this post, after providing the necessary definitions, I will

Downside betas do not help to identify diversifying strategies These need to be combined with upside betas Betas to the S&P 500 were more useful than betas to the VIX INTRODUCTION In our article Downside Betas vs Downside Correlations (read Downside Betas vs Downside Correlations) we contrasted

Collaboration with ChatGPT. I am still useful to package the experiment, and advertise it, but for how long? 🙂 In this joint work, I felt more like the robot copy-pasting rather than the author of the experiment. Sure, I did the prompting, but that too could be automated, after all building

Here is part two of my annual review. Part one looked at my overall portfolio, including long only, but there was only a cursory look at my futures. Here in this second part I will be looking a my futures trading account in a lot more detail. It's important to say why I'm doing this.

Indicators of growth and inflation cycles are plausible and successful predictors of asset class returns. For proof of concept, we propose a single balanced “cyclical strength score” based on point-in-time quantamental indicators of excess GDP growth, labor market tightening, and excess

A series of events has led to significantly increased interest in stock and options trading by retail investors: The arrival of investing platforms (such as Robinhood) with zero trading commissions and no account minimums. The COVID-19 pandemic, causing many workers to largely remain at home for

So, it’s been a little while. But after a couple of years of some grunt work analytics jobs *and* consulting for a $1B AUM fund, I’ve decided that I had a bit more in the tank to share as far as quant content creation–quantent creation (?)–goes. And a function I’ve searched for in Python

The expense ratio aside, the cost of transacting in an ETF depends on the size of the bid/ask spread at any point in time during the trading day. The ETF investor should make evidence-based trading decisions since the bid/ask spread can range from 1 basis point (bp) to several hundred bps. What are

A good book for an introduction to volatility from a trading perspective. Some excerpts from Volatility Trading by Sinclair: I am a trader. I am not a mathematician, financial engineer, or philosopher. My success is measured in profits. The tools I use and develop need only be useful. They need not

Stocks can be ranked by their upside and downside betas to the S&P 500 Results in strong sector biases and factor exposures Excess returns from upside stocks were negative, zero for downside stocks INTRODUCTION Most capital allocators use correlation to identify strategies that may add