Today’s post will begin a two-part series that explores the research examining risk-based explanations for the value premium, which, unlike the risk-based explanations of the size premium, have been a bit controversial. In June 1992, the paper “The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns” was published in the Journal of Finance. The authors, Professors Eugene F….
I have a high regard for accountants. They have an extremely difficult job. In order to maximize tax savings for their clients, they need to understand and interpret an incredibly complicated Internal Revenue Code. Former U.S. congressman John Hostettler once said, “The Internal Revenue Code and regulations add up to 1 million words and is nearly seven…
Exchange-traded funds are open-ended funds that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange. You can think of them as a hybrid version of both stocks and index funds. You buy them using a broker, just like you would to purchase a stock. They consist of a portfolio of securities that are designed to…
The recent appearance by Michael Lewis on 60 Minutes and the publication of his book Flash Boys has generated a furor over the perceived inequities of high-frequency trading. The idea that those engaged in high-frequency trading are permitted to “see” your trades, purchase stock ahead of your order and resell it to you at a higher price is clearly…
Everyone wants higher returns. To many investors, success in investing means generating “alpha.” If you are an investor in mutual funds, that means trying to generate returns in excess of the benchmark index designated by the fund. There are still many investors who participate in the pursuit of alpha, but the numbers are diminishing. In…
I love Michael Lewis’ writing, but I have some surprisingly good news to share about the high-frequency trading scandal revealed in his new book: High-frequency trading is not likely to hurt disciplined, long-term, low-frequency-trading investors. In fact, it might even help. Yes, it is almost impressive that Wall Street has managed to produce yet another scandal, even…
Let’s start with a parable. Next to a mountain trail stood a twisted, gnarly tree. Hikers loved the shade it provided, but one day, a guy with an ax came along and decided the tree could do more than provide shade. He thought the tree would make a great table. So he chopped it down…
An ongoing debate among investors is whether an active or passive strategy is most likely to give you the best results. Twice a year, Standard & Poor’s releases their active vs passive score card (officially called the S&P Indices Versus Active Fund report, or SPIVA for short.) The analysis compares actively managed funds against S&P index benchmarks,…
My last post addressed the concerns investors had about the dollar potentially losing its status as a reserve currency. Today, we’ll take a look at what actions you might consider taking if that was a risk about which you are concerned. First, you could increase your allocation to international equities. For example, in the case of…
Historically, in terms of yields, because of their federal tax exemption, AAA-rated municipal bonds have traded at a discount to Treasuries. Over the long term, AAA-rated intermediate-term municipal bond yields have typically traded between 75-85 percent of the yields on similar maturity Treasuries. For example, for most of the period from 2001 through 2007 five-year…
When estimating returns, we know that current valuations provide valuable information. The earnings yield derived from the Shiller CAPE 10—the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio—is considered by many to be at least as good, if not better, than other metrics. It uses smoothed real earnings to eliminate the fluctuations in net income caused by variations in…
Market-timing strategies attempt to outperform a buy-and-hold strategy by anticipating the future direction of a market. They can work, but mostly they don’t. First, such strategies are based on the belief that future security prices are predictable, typically through the use of technical indicators, such as trend following or momentum, that are computed from the…
There’s a growing body of evidence that beta is actually a two-sided, not a one-sided, “coin,” and those two faces are separated by perceptions of risk. Being risk averse, most investors care more than just about the standard deviation of returns (volatility), assigning more weight to downside deviations from the mean than to upside deviations….
I have received a number of questions since “60 Minutes” ran a piece on high-frequency trading (HFT)on March 30 (lest we forget, this is the same “60 Minutes” that ran a piece in 2010 that predicted the municipal market would implode in 2011, and we all know how that turned out). I’ll summarize what I think…
The Supreme Court of the United States has indicated an interest in deciding an important 401(k) case, Tibble v. Edison International. If the Supreme Court decides to hear the Tibble case, and if it decides it in a manner that will benefit investors, the impact could be profound. Before discussing the issues at play in…