In this paper we compare a variety of technical trading rules in the context of investing in the S&P500 index. These rules are increasingly popular both among retail investors and CTAs and similar investment funds. We find that a range of fairly simple rules, including the popular 200-day moving...

We examine the effectiveness of applying a trend following methodology to global asset allocation between equities, bonds, commodities and real estate. The application of trend following offers a substantial improvement in risk-adjusted performance compared to traditional buy-and-hold...

In this paper we explore an alternative approach for determining constituent weights for equity indices. This approach makes use of alternative definitions of company size, and is referred to as Fundamental Indexation (Arnott et al (2005)). Based upon a data set that comprises the largest 1,000...

There is now a dazzling array of alternatives to the market-cap approach to choosing constituent weights for equity indices. Using data on the 1,000 largest US stocks every year from 1968 to the end of 2011 we compare and contrast the performance of a set of alternative indexing approaches. The...

We show that combining momentum and trend following strategies for individual commodity futures can lead to portfolios which offer attractive risk adjusted returns which are superior to simple momentum strategies; when we expose these returns to a wide array of sources of systematic risk we find...

A growing body of literature suggests that over widely varying historical eras and across a wide range of asset classes momentum investing, often accompanied by a trend following overlay, provides superior risk-adjusted returns. We examine the effectiveness of applying these methodologies to...

This paper seeks to increase the understanding of the performance implications for investors who choose to combine an unlisted real estate portfolio (in this case German Spezialfonds) with a (global) listed real estate element. We call this a “blended” approach to real estate allocations....

We discuss the nature and importance of the concept of Sequence Risk, the risk that a bad return occurs at a particularly unfortunate time, such as around the point of maximum accumulation or the start of decumulation. This is especially relevant in the context of retirement savings, where the...

According to the Chinese calendar 2016 was the year of the Monkey. In this paper, using a common set of 500 US stocks, we analyse the performance of 1 billion randomly generated stock indices (as if chosen by a monkey) to both a market capitalization-weighted index and several popular smart beta...