Superior Returns Research Articles

QuantNet: transferring learning across trading strategies

Systematic financial trading strategies account for over 80% of trade volume in equities and a large chunk of the foreign exchange market. In spite of the availability of data from multiple markets, current approaches in trading rely mainly on learning trading strategies per individual market. In this paper, we take a step towards developing fully end-to-end global trading strategies that leverage systematic trends to produce superior market-specific trading strategies. We introduce QuantNet: an architecture that learns market-agnostic trends and use these to learn superior market-specific trading strategies. Each market-specific model is composed of an encoder-decoder pair. The encoder transforms market-specific data into an abstract latent representation that is processed by a global model shared by all markets, while the decoder learns a market-specific trading strategy based on both local and global information from the market-specific encoder and the global model. QuantNet uses recent advances in transfer and meta-learning, where market-specific parameters are free to specialize on the problem at hand, whilst market-agnostic parameters are driven to capture signals from all markets. By integrating over idiosyncratic market data we can learn general transferable dynamics, avoiding the problem of overfitting to produce strategies with superior returns. We evaluate QuantNet on historical data across 3103 assets in 58 global equity markets. Against the top performing baseline, QuantNet yielded 51% higher Sharpe and 69% Calmar ratios. In addition, we show the benefits of our approach over the non-transfer learning variant, with improvements of 15% and 41% in Sharpe and Calmar ratios. A link to QuantNet code is made available in the appendix.

Why do firm fundamentals predict returns? Evidence from short selling activity

This study uses short selling activity to test whether the relation between fundamentals and future returns is due to rational pricing or mispricing. We find that short sellers target firms with fundamental performance below market expectations. We also show that short selling activity reduces the return predictability of fundamentals by speeding up the price adjustments to negative fundamental signals. To further investigate whether the returns earned by short sellers reflect rational risk premia or mispricing, we exploit a natural experiment, namely Regulation of SHO, which creates exogenous shocks to short selling by temporarily relaxing short-sale constraints. Evidence from the experiment confirms that the superior returns to short sellers result from exploiting overpricing. Overall, our study suggests that the return predictability of fundamentals reflects mispricing rather than rational risk premia.

Role of educational, regional and religious attributes of CEOs in performance of Indian family firms

PurposeThe authors investigate whether community-based CEO's attributes, particularly educational attainment, regional and religious affiliation, are direct antecedents of performance in family-controlled Indian firms. The authors further examine whether CEO's education moderates the linkage of firm performance with regional and religious affiliation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ pooled Ordinary Least Square with fixed effects and Fama-Macbeth regression techniques to test their hypotheses.FindingsThe results reveal that firms with post-graduate CEOs in business and firms with doctorate CEOs, significantly outperform peer firms. The authors also find that CEOs from northern India outperform peer CEOs consistently which emanates from the risk-taking differentials of CEO's across regions. Hindu CEOs also deliver superior return on assets. However, CEO's educational attainment moderates the influence of regional and religious affiliations.Originality/valueThis study is unique as it contributes on the role of regional affiliation of top executives in determining performance which almost remains unexplored in existing literature.

Investor attention, information acquisition, and value premium: A mispricing perspective

This paper investigates the impact of investor attention on the dynamics of the value premium. We find superior return differences to value-growth strategy conditioned as low degree of investor attention. In contrast, return differences to the value-growth strategy conditioned as high investor attention are indifferent from zero. We show that return differences to low degree of investor attention across value and growth firms are attributed to mispricing explanation using common risk factors, mispricing factors, sentiment analysis, multivariate analysis, and market expectation errors approach. The findings suggest that investor attention contributes to generating superior return differences to standard value-growth strategy. Our finding concludes that long-short investment strategy in value stocks and growth stocks conditioned as low investor attention generate superior value premium.

Arthroscopic Osteochondral Autograft Transfer System Procedure of the Lateral Femoral Condyle with Donor-Site Backfill Using Osteochondral Allograft Plug

The osteochondral autograft transfer system (OATS) procedure is at the forefront of cartilage restoration surgeries of the knee, offering superior return to sport rates and long-term functionality. This technique reports an arthroscopic OATS procedure of the lateral femoral condyle with donor-site backfill using an osteochondral allograft plug. Potential complications from unfilled donor site sockets are eliminated through donor site backfill with an allograft plug.

Top-bottom investing skill and the fund alpha in Indian mutual fund industry: an empirical investigation

PurposeMutual funds are the second most preferred investment option in India and have garnered considerable research interest. The focus of Indian studies thus far has been restricted to the bottom-up approach of investing which rewards a fund manager for picking winner stocks and generates superior returns. While changing portfolio allocation as per varying macro-trends has been instrumental in generating superior returns, it has not been given the desired attention. This study addresses this important research gap.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analyze the industry selection ability of the fund manager on a robust sample by decomposing alpha into alpha due to industry selection and alpha attributable to stock selection. Alpha estimates are computed on a robust sample of 34 open-ended Indian equity mutual funds for a 10-year duration 2011–2020 using three base models of asset pricing – single-factor, four-factor and five-factor alpha under panel data methodology.FindingsThe study leads us to four major findings. One, industry selection explains more than two-fifth of the alpha both in cross-section and time series of returns; two, industry selection exhibits persistence for more than four quarters across asset pricing model; third, younger funds have level playing when alpha from picking right industries is concerned; four, broad industry allocation continues to explain superior returns as sector allocation undergoes consolidation during ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and funds increase exposure to defensive stocks, consistent with folio allocations as per macroeconomic conditions.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors find strong evidence of persistence in the case of alpha attributable to the industry selection component, and the findings are consistent with the persistence results reported in the empirical literature. While some funds excel in stock-picking skills and others excel in picking the right industries, both skills together make for winner funds that attract larger investor flows as investors chase superior performance. The authors also find no evidence of diseconomies of scale in the case of industry allocation alpha generated by the fund managers.Practical implicationsThe results suggest a fresh approach for investors while making mutual fund investment decisions; the investors can achieve superior returns by assessing industry selection skills as it tends to provide a more holistic picture concerning a perennial question – why some funds outperform and continue to contribute to investor's wealth?Social implicationsMutual funds have become a favored investment option for Indian investors more so as a disciplined investment option owing to dismal financial literacy rates. The study throws light on a relatively unaddressed dimension of choosing winner funds. The significance of right sector allocation assumed even more significance with the onset of the pandemic which lends further credence to the findings of the study.Originality/valueResearch has been conducted on secondary data extracted from a well-cited database for Indian mutual funds. Empirical analysis and conclusion drawn are based on authentic statistical analysis and adds to the existing literature.

Do stop-loss rules add value in international equity market allocation?

ABSTRACT We consider the performance of stop-loss rules in international equity market allocation. Diversifying internationally gives the potential of larger returns but often involved higher risks, so it is a natural setting to consider these rules. Our results indicate that stop-loss rules, which involve closing positions that decline by a pre-specified percentage, are an important determinant of asset allocation in a parametric portfolio policy setting. They generate portfolios that have superior mean and risk-adjusted returns for investors. This result holds in general but is economically stronger in declining markets. The outperformance is robust to the inclusion of transaction costs.

Interpretable, Transparent, and Auditable Machine Learning: An Alternative to Factor Investing

Interpretability, transparency, and auditability of machine learning (ML)-driven investment has become a key issue for investment managers as many look to enhance or replace traditional factor-based investing. The authors show that symbolic artificial intelligence (SAI) provides a solution to this conundrum, with superior return characteristics compared to traditional factor-based stock selection, while producing interpretable outcomes. Their SAI approach is a form of <i>satisficing</i> that systematically learns investment decision rules (symbols) for stock selection, using an <i>a priori</i> algorithm, avoiding the need for error-prone approaches for secondary explanations (known as XAI). The authors compare the empirical performance of an SAI approach with a traditional factor-based stock selection approach, in an emerging market equities universe. They show that SAI generates superior return characteristics and would provide a viable and interpretable alternative to factor-based stock selection. Their approach has significant implications for investment managers, providing an ML alternative to factor investing but with interpretable outcomes that could satisfy internal and external stakeholders. <b>Key Findings</b> ▪ Symbolic artificial intelligence (SAI) for stock selection, a form of satisficing, provides an alternative to factor investing and overcomes the interpretability issues of many machine learning (ML) approaches. ▪ An SAI that could be applied at scale is shown to produce superior return characteristics to traditional factor-based stock selection. ▪ SAI’s superior stock selection is examined using notional visualizations of its decision boundaries.

Time your hedge with Deep Reinforcement Learning (ICAPS 2020 Presentation Slides)

Can an asset manager plan the optimal timing for her/his hedging strategies given market conditions? The standard approach based on Markowitz or other more or less sophisticated financial rules aims to find the best portfolio allocation thanks to forecasted expected returns and risk but fails to fully relate market conditions to hedging strategies decision. In contrast, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) can tackle this challenge by creating a dynamic dependency between market information and hedging strategies allocation decisions. In this paper, we present a realistic and augmented DRL framework that: (i) uses additional contextual information to decide an action, (ii) has a one period lag between observations and actions to account for one day lag turnover of common asset managers to rebalance their hedge, (iii) is fully tested in terms of stability and robustness thanks to a repetitive train test method called anchored walk forward training, similar in spirit to k fold cross validation for time series and (iv) allows managing leverage of our hedging strategy. Our experiment for an augmented asset manager interested in sizing and timing his hedges shows that our approach achieves superior returns and lower risk.

Mutual funds behavior and risk-adjusted performance in Nigeria

The paper investigates the behavior of mutual funds and their risk-adjusted performance in the financial markets of Nigeria between April 2016 and May 31, 2019, using descriptive statistics, as well as CAPM, Jensen’s alpha, and other risk-adjusted portfolio performance measures such as Sharpe and Treynor ratios, as well as Fama decomposition of return. The descriptive tests revealed that 80.77% of the funds were superior to market returns, while 13.46% were riskier. The market and the fund returns behaved abnormally with asymptotic and leptokurtic characteristics as their skewness and kurtosis varied from the normal requirements. Diagnostically, the normality test by Jacque-Berra showed that the return was not normally distributed at a 1% significance level. The market was more aggressive relative to the funds. The average risk-free rate was 6.75% above the market’s return. The risk-adjusted portfolio returns measured by Sharpe and Treynor ratios showed that 67.31% of the funds underperformed the market compared to 40.38% that outperformed the market using Jensen’s alpha. Fama decomposition of return revealed that the fund managers are risk-averse with 48% superior selection ability and rationally invested over 85% of investors’ funds in schemes with fixed income securities at a given risk-free return that cushioned the negative effects of the systematic and idiosyncratic risks and consequently threw the total returns into positive territories. Overall, the fund managers possessed 52% of inferior selection abilities that only earned 33% of superior risk-adjusted returns and hence, failed to achieve the desired diversification in the relevant period.

Effects of human capital and fund characteristics on mutual fund performance in Malaysia

Background: The evolution of the mutual funds industry has changed investors’ perspective. Instead of just focusing on which fund performances are best, investors pay great attention to who is managing and delivering superior returns in their investment portfolios. Nonetheless, it is very scant of comprehensive studies concern with human capital managerial characteristics that link with fund performances. Hence, this study proposes the integration of fund performances, managerial characteristics, systematic risk, expense, and turnover ratio, with single and simultaneous equations based on asset pricing models. Methods: Using a sample of Malaysian fund managers, data from fund management companies, Thomson One database, and fund master prospectus over the periods of January 2012 to December 2014, the fund performance was measured using Jensen alpha (CAPM single factor), and Fama and French three-factor model on single and simultaneous equations. The examination was further carried out by employing the ordinary least squares and three-stage least squares methods. Results: The results suggest that for fund managers, holding a business degree was the key factor to determine the fund performance, while having Master’s degree was not the primary concern. Fund performance and risk behavior varied across fund managers of different gender. Conclusions: The expense ratio, turnover ratio, and fund objective were significantly correlated with fund performance. This study provides ultimate implications for fund management companies, when it comes to the efficient allocation of human capital. Fund management companies should focus more on the team-managed funds phenomenon, instead of on single-managed funds. Overall, this study provides significant guidance for the Malaysian Securities Commissions and fund management companies, to develop a more competent funds market in Malaysia. Specifically, by strengthening the fund industry policies, the typical agency problems, such as too-high managerial expenses, and excessive risk-taking can be alleviated.

Decarbonization Factors

In the face of accelerating climate change, investors are making capital allocations seeking to decarbonize portfolios by reducing the carbon intensity of their holdings. To understand the performance of portfolio decarbonization strategies and investor behavior toward decarbonization, the authors construct decarbonization factors that go long low-carbon-intensity and short high-carbon-intensity sectors, industries, or companies. They consider several portfolio formation strategies and find that strategies that lowered carbon emissions more aggressively performed better. Decarbonization factor returns are associated with contemporaneous institutional flows into the factors. Buying decarbonization factors when coincident flows are positive while selling when they are negative produces significantly positive alphas. Combining decarbonization factors that have positive contemporaneous flows would provide investors with significantly superior returns and continuous exposure to low-carbon portfolios. The results are more pronounced in Europe relative to the United States. The results suggest that institutional investor flows contain information about anticipated fundamentals related to climate change developments. <b>TOPICS:</b>ESG investing, portfolio construction, analysis of individual factors/risk premia, performance measurement <b>Key Findings</b> ▪ The authors develop six strategies to decarbonize a portfolio of US and European-listed equities and find that these decarbonation factors generate positive returns from 2009–2018. ▪ After controlling for traditional factors, they find that the decarbonization factors that achieve greater carbon reduction also deliver greater alphas. ▪ They measure institutional flows into and out of the decarbonization factors and find that going with the concurrent flows on low-carbon strategies improves investor returns. This result suggests that institutional flows contain information about climate-related fundamentals.

On being Sharīʿah compliant in equity investments: impact of investment horizon andmarket volatility

PurposeThis paper aims to undertake a comprehensive comparative analysis of Sharīʿah-compliant equity investments (SCEIs) and their non-Sharīʿah counterparts, in India, conditioning for investment horizon and market volatility. Indirectly, it also investigates for time varying performance of SCEIs, and explicitly analyses the unsystematic risk and related adequacy of returns.Design/methodology/approachTesting for statistical significance of differences in risks and returns; analysing portfolio performance using conventional metrics, information ratio, and Jensen's Alpha; Estimating returns due to stock selection and market timing using Fama’s Net Selectivity and Treynor and Mazuy’s Models.FindingsSCEIs in India do not significantly differ in their total risks and returns compared to their conventional counterparts. While their risk is lower in the monthly and quarterly investment horizons, their Jensen’s Alphas are positive only in the annual investment horizons. These findings hold, when market volatility is low. Market timing wipes out the superior returns that exist due to stock selection in SCEIs.Research limitations/implicationsBeing Sharīʿah-compliant is beneficial only in longer investment horizons. Asset selection, not co-movement with the market, is key to excess returns to compensate for risks due to inadequate diversification. However, only cautious market timing can conserve them.Practical implicationsThough investors are not better-off in choosing ethical investments, they are not worse-off either. Being Sharīʿah-compliant is rewarding during less volatile markets.Originality/valueThis paper extends international literature on SCEIs, with evidence on the impact of investment horizon and market volatility on their returns and risks. Further, this paper is also a comprehensive analysis of Indian SCEIs, broadening the empirical evidence on a significant, non-Islamic and emerging market.

Post-Earning Announcement Drift and Value-Glamour Anomalies in NSE Listed Firms

Purpose of the article: Of the various market anomalies, the Value-Glamour anomaly and Post-Earnings Announcement Drifts (PEAD) have consistently attracted the attention of researchers. Prior studies have established that the reaction of value stocks and glamour stocks to the earnings announcement differs significantly and there is a close relationship between the PEAD and abnormal returns arising due to earning announcement surprises. We have studied the drift patterns of various value and glamour portfolios and tested whether the direction of the earnings announcement abnormal return is opposite to that of earnings surprise in the Indian market.Methodology: We use the statistics of 100 firms listed on the NSE for a sample period of 2014–2018. We use a set of 1130 observations analysed using the expectations formation approach around earnings and evaluate the post earnings announcement drift. We use the Earnings Response Coefficients to find the association between abnormal stock returns and earnings surprises.Scientific aim: The aim of this research is to improve the knowledge of market anomalies in developing markets such as India focusing on the impact of earnings announcement on growth and value stocks.Findings: We find that a negative association of abnormal stock returns with surprise in accounting earnings announcements. The stocks, which are overvalued or undervalued, are properly priced after the earnings announcements. Our results refute the earlier studies evidencing the strong support in favour of market inefficiency in the Indian context, particularly with respect to publicly available earnings information.Conclusions: The Indian stock market tends to be efficient with respect to earnings announcements and therefore does not produce excessive returns. However, a heterogeneity with respect to earnings announcement may exist among the category of stocks depending upon liquidity position. Superior returns cannot be derived by traders and investors on a consistent basis from value-glamour anomaly.

Impact of Firm-Initiated Tweets on Stock Return and Trading Volume

Recent SEC guidelines enabled many Fortune 500 companies to actively adopt social media, such as Twitter, to disseminate information. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between tweets by corporations and stock returns. Our study used over 1.2 million corporate tweets made by thirty companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average between April 2013 and July 2020. The shocks from the frequency of corporate tweets can positively impact stock returns and trading volume. We, therefore, examine causality and impulse response between frequency of corporate tweets, stock returns, and changes in trading volume using a vector autoregression model. Our findings indicate that 43 percent of stocks exhibit Granger causality between firm-initiated tweets and changes in trading volume. We find evidence consistent with the attention-induced price pressure hypothesis proposed by Barber and Odean. We observe that a shock in corporate tweeting behavior translates into a positive effect on changes in trading volume and returns in 73 percent and 60 percent of stocks, respectively. These results are significant for developing appropriate social media communication strategies. The findings are also valuable for investors and traders who can deploy forecasting models utilizing corporate tweets to earn superior returns.

The Disappearing Outperformance of Post-reorg Equity

Using trading information from both over-the-counter (OTC) markets and public exchanges of a comprehensive sample of relisted Chapter 11 firms in the past four decades, we find that newly issued equity from these firms outperforms industry- and characteristics-matched portfolios by 40--50% during the 200 trading days post emergence on average, but the median abnormal return is close to zero. The superior returns are almost exclusive to firms traded in the OTC markets. The equal-weighted calendar time portfolio generates 7.2% annualized excess returns over a five-factor benchmark, but the outperformance disappears in the recent decade. The post-emergence earnings announcement returns are positive only in the 2000s, when institutional ownership of post-reorganization equity increased significantly during the same time. The evidence suggests that the outperformance of post-reorg equity documented in earlier studies is likely due to market expectation errors for future earnings, which are corrected in recent periods by sophisticated institutional investors.

Recession managers and mutual fund performance

We find that fund managers who began their careers during recessions produce superior returns. This superior performance is not unconditional, as they exhibit better market timing than their non-recession counterparts in recessions, but do not demonstrate better stock picking in booms. Exploring managers' portfolio choices across years, we find that recession managers tilt their investments towards defensive, rather than cyclical, industries during and before recession periods. Overall, our findings support the argument that the economic conditions under which an individual initially entered the labour market exert a long-term impact on her career outcomes and decision-making.

REBUTTAL: The Endowment Model Defense That Wasn’t

In “The Endowment Model Is Just Active Management” (Siegel 2021b), Siegel chooses to expound on active investing in conceptual terms, with occasional reference to endowment management. This rebuttal contends that the Siegel article is long on intellectual theory and short on proof. The author takes issue with Siegel’s rationalization of endowments’ significant underperformance over 12 years and counting. The case for active investing looks past the elephant in the room—theory and evidence casting grave doubt on the merit of diversified—that is, myriad-manager—active investing such as that of endowments. The exceptionalism argument falls flat. The article sidesteps the glaring deficiencies of the endowment model. Siegel simply <i>posits</i> the presence of “skilled employees” in university investment offices who will get the job done despite obstacles of their own making. This rebuttal finds the explanation unconvincing and concludes that the endowment model is dead as a doornail. <b>TOPICS:</b>Foundations &amp; endowments, portfolio theory, portfolio construction, performance measurement <b>Key Findings</b> ▪ Siegel’s article makes a case for endowment <i>exceptionalism</i>. This is a kind of cultural advantage that leads him to conclude that endowment managers should be able to generate superior returns over the long run. The exceptionalism argument falls flat when subjected to logical and empirical analysis. ▪ In letting the endowments off the hook for an extended period of underperformance, the article makes a specious comparison of endowment returns with those of the S&amp;P 500 stock index during a major bull market. A proper benchmark is 72% all-cap, global equities and 28% bonds. ▪ The article sidesteps the glaring deficiencies of the endowment model. Siegel simply posits the presence of “skilled employees” in university investment offices who will get the job done despite obstacles of their own making.

Do specialist funds outperform? Evidence from European non-listed real estate funds

This study aims to determine if specialization led to higher financial performance for European non-listed real estate funds. Funds may either specialize in a particular country and/or property type or manage a broadly diversified portfolio. The findings suggest that after adjusting for relevant performance drivers, both country specialization and country-sector specialization are associated with superior returns while sector specialization is not. The outperformance of country and country-sector specialist funds was particularly pronounced during the recovery and growth period of European real estate markets from 2010 to 2019.

Long-term dependency between sovereign bonds and sectoral indices of India: evidence using Hurst exponent and wavelet analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide a new way to optimize a portfolio and to show that combining the Hurst exponent and wavelet analysis may help to increase portfolio returns.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use the Hurst exponent and wavelet analysis to study the long-term dependencies between sovereign bonds and sectoral indices of India. The authors further construct and evaluate the performance of three portfolios constructed on the basis of Hurst standard deviation (SD) – global minimum variance (GMV), most diversified portfolio (MDP) and equal risk contribution (ERC).FindingsThe authors find that an ERC portfolio generates positive superior return as compared other two. Since our sample includes periods of two crisis – post-2007 financial crisis and the ongoing pandemic, this study reveals that combining government bond with equities and gold provides a higher returns when the portfolios are constructed using the risk exposures of each asset in the overall portfolio risk.Practical implicationsThe findings provide guidance to portfolio managers by helping them to select assets using the Hurst approach and wavelet analysis thereby increasing the portfolio returns.Originality/valueIn this study, the authors use a combination of Hurst exponent and wavelet analysis to understand the long-term dependencies among various assets and provide a new methodology to optimize a portfolio. As far as the authors’ knowledge, no study in the past has attempted to provide a joint framework for portfolio optimization and therefore this study is the first to apply this methodology.