Optimal investment of firms implies that expected stock returns are tied with the expected marginal benefit of investment divided by the marginal cost of investment. Winners have higher expected growth and expected marginal productivity (two major components of the marginal benefit of...

We offer an investment-based interpretation of price and earnings momentum. The neoclassical theory of investment implies that expected stock returns are tied with the expected marginal benefit of investment divided by the marginal cost of investment. Winners have higher expected growth and...

This paper examines to what extent the momentum spread ratio (MSR) can predict momentum profits. The momentum spread ratio as a potential proxy of investor underreaction can significantly predict the momentum, industry momentum, and residual momentum, especially after 1994, suggesting that...

This paper challenges the prevailing view that investor sentiment is a contrarian predictor of market returns at nearly all horizons. As an important piece of "out-of-sample" evidence, we document that investor sentiment in China is a reliable momentum signal at monthly frequency. The strong...

We build an equilibrium model to explain why stock return predictability concentrates in bad times. The key feature is that investors use different forecasting models, and hence assess uncertainty differently. As economic conditions deteriorate, uncertainty rises and investors' opinions...

This paper develops a Monte-Carlo backtesting procedure for risk premia strategies and employs it to study Time-Series Momentum (TSM). Relying on time-series models, empirical residual distributions and copulas we overcome two key drawbacks of conventional backtesting procedures. We create...

The study tests whether realised moments of stock returns (mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis) computed from daily returns over the last month, quarter and year can predict the 1-month cross-sectional stock returns of 40 US-traded liquid stocks in the period 1986-2019. The performed...

Three concepts: stochastic discount factors, multi-beta pricing and mean-variance efficiency, are at the core of modern empirical asset pricing. This chapter reviews these paradigms and the relations among them, concentrating on conditional asset-pricing models where lagged variables serve as...

This paper examines how the size of the rolling window, and the frequency used in moving average (MA) trading strategies, affects financial performance when risk is measured. We use the MA rule for market timing, that is, for when to buy stocks and when to shift to the risk-free rate. The...

In this paper we address three main objections of behavioral finance to the theory of rational finance, considered as “anomalies” the theory of rational finance cannot explain: (i) Predictability of asset returns; (ii) The Equity Premium; (iii) The Volatility Puzzle. We offer resolutions of...