The existing replication policies at top finance journals are far weaker than the policies at top economics journals. This paper explores both the costs and benefits of having a stronger replication policy in the context of my failed 2010 initiative to develop a unified policy across all top...

A mechanical rebalancing strategy, such as a monthly or quarterly reallocation towards fixed portfolio weights, is an active strategy. Winning asset classes are sold and losers are bought. During crises, when markets are often trending, this can lead to substantially larger drawdowns than a...

In this era of inexpensive computation and vast data, systematic, or algorithmically driven, investment is increasingly popular. Systematic strategies appear in stand-alone products as well in tail-hedging and defensive-overlay strategies. Indeed, given the enormous growth in data, it is...

Theoretical models imply fund size and performance should be negatively linked. However, empiricists have failed to uncover consistent support for this negative relation. Using a new econometric framework which includes fund-specific sensitivities to decreasing returns to scale, we find a both...

Final working paper version. "" Published version: The Review of Financial Studies, Volume 31, Issue 7, July 2018, pp. 2499–2552. Past fund performance does a poor job of predicting future outcomes. The reason is noise. Using a random effects framework, we reduce the noise by pooling...

Using a sample that post-dates important regulatory changes in Europe, we show that a buy recommendation from an analyst on a “consensus sell” stock is, on average, sufficient to cause the stock to start to rise in value. Similarly, a sell recommendation on a “consensus buy” stock can...

We examine whether broker recommendations add value in Europe. In contrast to extant research, we focus on a non-U.S. sample that post-dates the important regulatory changes of 2003/4. Our analysis suggests that European brokers' recommendations outperform a standard benchmark during the...

The “real” price of gold in the U.S. is historically high, relative to its history as an actively tradable asset. But what about the real price of gold in other countries? It turns out that, in our impressionistic sample of 23 countries, the real price of gold is high everywhere. The real...

Investors face a number of challenges when seeking to estimate the prospective performance of a long-only investment in commodity futures. For instance, historically, the average annualized excess return of individual commodity futures has been approximately zero and commodity futures returns...

Investors face numerous challenges when seeking to estimate the prospective performance of a longonly investment in commodity futures. For instance, historically, the average annualized excess return of the average individual commodity futures has been approximately zero and commodity futures...