Every year, I like to keep track of the predictions that “gurus” and other market observers make for the upcoming year, specifically the ones that they say are “sure things.” It seems like no one in the financial media holds them accountable (which is a shame, since the evidence shows there are no good forecasters),…
A good friend, Sherman Doll, related the following story. Sherman has been a two-line sport kite flier for years. While not a pro, he has learned a few tricks from observing the flying behavior of these kites. He told me that one of the most difficult skills for beginners to master is what to do…
Investors have now been faced with a long period of very low yields on high-quality bonds. As a result, and as a consequence of the Federal Reserve’s easy monetary policy, many investors have chosen to pursue higher yields by taking credit risk. This has occurred despite historical evidence that only a very small default premium…
As the holidays conclude and the calendar turns into a new year, depression can become an all-too-real possibility. After all, the daylight hours are shorter, and what seems like the longest and coldest (at least in some places) stretch of winter is still ahead. It’s a common time of year for depression, which is frequently…
Interest rates, which have sat at or near historical lows during the past seven years, have led many investors to seek additional yield in the form of credit risk. The recent trend, and its popularity, gives us an opportunity to determine if this risk historically has been rewarded by examining the credit risk premium in…
Today’s investors may have drawn the proverbial “short straw.” From an investment perspective, they are confronting what might be considered a “perfect storm” creating strong head winds against higher expected returns. We’ll begin by discussing the three main factors conspiring against them, then analyze some of the options investors might employ to combat this problem….
Previously, we examined three main factors conspiring against investors seeking higher expected returns. These factors can combine to generate a “perfect storm,” at least from an investment perspective, facing today’s investors. We then turned to the four most effective ways that investors can fight these head winds, which, oddly enough, have nothing to do with…
J.B. Heaton, Nick Polson and J.H. Witte recently authored a nice short paper—it’s all of four pages—entitled “Why Indexing Works.” In it, the authors developed a simple stock selection model to explain why active equity fund managers tend to underperform their benchmark index. While most of the academic literature focuses on the efficiency of the…
Many investors today are confronting what could be considered a “perfect storm” that is creating strong head winds against the pursuit of higher expected returns. So far, we have discussed the main factors currently working against investors, as well as some steps they might consider taking to help combat this problem. We will now examine…
Over the past week, we’ve taken an in-depth look at why today’s investors are facing a “perfect storm” of factors that, when combined, can significantly hinder the pursuit of higher expected returns. In taking on this problem, we have so far discussed the elements working against investors, as well as some steps to help combat…
Ever since the global financial crisis, the real interest rates of developed economies have remained in negative territory. Nominal interest rates hover near zero, and inflation rates, although quite low for historical standards, have remained positive (in most countries, at least on average). What’s more, negative nominal interest rates have even been observed in some…
There has been a lot of research recently that investigates the link between stock returns and higher moments of the return distribution, specifically the skewness of returns. This link, unfortunately, is frequently ignored by more standard measures of market risk and volatility. Skewness, if you’ll recall, measures the asymmetry of a distribution. In terms of…
Liquidity is valuable to investors. Therefore, investors demand higher expected returns for less liquid stocks. The liquidity of an asset market refers to the ability of investors to buy and sell significant quantities of that asset, quickly, at low cost and without a major price concession. Thus, liquidity risk can be thought of as the…
Philip Tetlock, who teaches psychology, business and political science at the University of California, Berkeley, is also the author of “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” The book, which was published in 2006, discusses the findings of his 20-year study, the first scientific study on the ability of experts from…
There has been a great deal of focus by the academic community in recent years on fine-tuning the various factor models used to explain the differences in returns of diversified portfolios. Marie Lambert, Boris Fays and Georges Hubner contribute to the literature with their 2015 paper, “Size and Value Matter, But Not the Way You…