#44 – Paired Switching

Authors: Schizas, Thomakos

Title: Market timing using asset rotation on exchange traded funds: a meta-analysis on trading performance

Link: http://businessperspectives.org/journals_free/imfi/2013/imfi_en_2013_02cont_Schizas.pdf

Abstract:

The ultimate goal of any “paper” investment strategy is to achieve real-life profitability. This paper measures the performance of a trading rule based on the relative pricing and relative volatility of a rotation strategy between two assets, using data from passive ETFs. To avoid problems of pair selection we work with meta-data obtained after the evaluation of a large number of 351 pairs of ETFs. In this way the authors analyze the performance of the proposed strategy on the cross-section of different ETFs. The results show that rotation trading, as applied in this paper, offers advantages even when the simplest model is used in generating trading signals. Furthermore, the authors find that the differences in the actual mean returns (over the evaluation period), the correlation of the pair components and to (a lesser extend) the volatilities of the ETFs can explain the success of the rotation strategies.

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#100 – Trading WTI/BRENT Spread

Authors: Lubnau

Title: Spread trading strategies in the crude oil futures market

Link: http://econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/96520/1/783913591.pdf

Abstract:

This article explores whether common technical trading strategies used in equity markets can be employed profitably in the markets for WTI and Brent crude oil. The strategies tested are Bollinger Bands, based on a mean-reverting hedge portfolio of WTI and Brent. The trading systems are tested with historical data from 1992 to 2013, representing 22 years of data and for various specifications. The hedge ratio for the crude oil portfolio is derived by using the Johansen procedure and a dynamic linear model with Kalman filtering. The significance of the results is evaluated with a bootstrap test in which randomly generated orders are employed. Results show that some setups of the system are able to be profitable over every five-year period tested. Furthermore they generate profits and Sharpe ratios that are significantly higher than those of randomly generated orders of approximately the same holding time. The best results with some Sharpe ratios in excess of three, are obtained when a dynamic linear model with Kalman filtering and maximum likelihood estimates of the unknown variance of the state equation is employed to constantly update the hedge ratio of the portfolio. The results indicate that the crude oil market may not be weak-form efficient.

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#33 – Post-Earnings Announcement Effect

Authors: Kwon, Kim

Title: Investment Horizon of Shareholders and Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift

Link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2545189

Abstract:

We hypothesize that post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD) is caused by underreaction of long-term investors since they do not pay much attention to short-term events. Consistent with the hypothesis, empirical observations show that stocks mostly held by long-term investors exhibit strong PEAD, while stocks mostly held by short-term investors does not. The results are still robust even after transaction costs, investor recognition, temporal inattention, and reversal in earnings surprises are controlled for.

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#5 – FX Carry Trade
#8 – FX Momentum
#9 – FX Value – PPP Strategy

Authors: Pojarliev, Levich

Title: A New Look at Currency Investing

Link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2571391

Abstract:

The authors of this book examine the rationale for investing in currency. They highlight several features of currency returns that make currency an attractive asset class for institutional investors. Using style factors to model currency returns provides a natural way to decompose returns into alpha and beta components. They find that several established currency trading strategies (variants of carry, trend-following, and value strategies) produce consistent returns that can be proxied as style or risk factors and have the nature of beta returns. Then, using two datasets of returns of actual currency hedge funds, they find that some currency managers produce true alpha. Finally, they find that adding to an institutional investor’s portfolio even a small amount of currency exposure — particularly to alpha generators — can make a meaningful positive impact on the portfolio’s performance.

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#83 – Pre-Holiday Effect

Authors: Carchano, Tornero

Title: The Pan-European Holiday Effect

Link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2556949

Abstract:

The construction of a single European block in the context of financial markets has caused the different national stock exchanges of the euro area to converge towards one common trading calendar that allows to study whether the holiday effect is a pan-European calendar anomaly or country-specific. By applying simulation methods, we provide evidence of the existence of statistically and economically abnormal positive pre- and post-holiday returns in the Eurozone which are not related to higher than average levels of volatility, but which can be explained by the preference of investors to avoid selling around European holidays

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#118 – Time Series Momentum Effect

Authors: Hutchinson, O'Brien

Title: Trend Following and Macroeconomic Risk

Link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2550718

Abstract:

We examine the relationship between the returns of trend following and macroeconomic risk. Our results demonstrate that macroeconomic factors do have a statistically significant relationship with trend following, when we allow for the dynamic exposures of the strategy. We find that this time varying risk exposure allows trend following to generate positive returns across a wide range of bond and equity market cycles. Prior research has documented that the majority of cross sectional momentum returns are derived from macroeconomic risk exposures. However, the same is not true for trend following where at least half of performance comes from the unexplained components of futures returns. When we relate performance to the conditional volatility of macroeconomic variables, our results show that trend following generates higher returns in periods where economic uncertainty is low.

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