We combine self-collected historical data from 1867 to 1907 with CRSP data from 1926 to 2012, to examine the risk and return over the past 140 years of one of the most popular mechanical trading strategies — momentum. We find that momentum has earned abnormally high risk-adjusted returns — a...

We evaluate the importance of "Limits to Arbitrage" to explain profitability of momentum strategies. Specifically, when the availability of arbitrage capital is in short supply, momentum cycles last longer, and breaks in momentum cycles are shorter. We demonstrate the robustness of our findings...

This paper studies the ICAPM intertemporal relation between the conditional mean and the conditional variance of the aggregate stock market return. We introduce a new estimator that forecasts monthly variance with past daily squared returns -- the Mixed Data Sampling (or MIDAS) approach. Using...

We consider various MIDAS (Mixed Data Sampling) regression models to predict volatility. The models differ in the specification of regressors (squared returns, absolute returns, realized volatility, realized power, and return ranges), in the use of daily or intra-daily (5-minute) data, and in...

We find that price momentum in stocks was a pervasive phenomenon during the Victorian age (1866-1907) as well. Momentum strategy profits have little systematic risk even at business cycle frequencies; disappear periodically only to reappear later; exhibit long run reversal; and are higher...

The Multiplicative Error Model introduced by Engle (2002) for positive valued processes is specified as the product of a (conditionally autoregressive) scale factor and an innovation process with positive support. In this paper we propose a multi-variate extension of such a model, by taking into...

Asset pricing relations are developed for a vector of assets with a time varying covariance structure. Assuming that the eigenvectors are constant but the eigenvalues changing, both the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory suggest the same testable implication: the time...

This paper defines and tests a form of market efficiency called market dexterity which requires that asset prices adjust instantaneously and completely in response to new information. Examining the behavior of the yen/dollar exchange rate while each of the major markets are open it is possible...

This paper develops a method for option hedging which is consistent with time-varying preferences and probabilities. The preferences are expressed in the form of an empirical pricing kernel (EPK), which measures the state price per unit probability, while probabilities are derived from an...

Value at Risk has become the standard measure of market risk employed by financial institutions for both internal and regulatory purposes. Despite its conceptual simplicity, its measurement is a very challenging statistical problem and none of the methodologies developed so far give satisfactory...