Conventional financial theory considers ex-ante that risk, generally measured by the volatility, has to be appropriately rewarded by expected returns. In modern financial markets, there are countless quantitative and systematic strategies which may test and eventually lead to excess returns when...

We construct a momentum factor that identifies cross-sectional winners and losers based on a weighting scheme that incorporates all the price data, over the entire lookback period, as opposed to only the first and last price points of the window. The weighting scheme is derived from the...

We provide empirical evidence that the returns on US equity momentum exhibit a time-varying skewness which deepens during dramatic losses (crashes). As a result, the dynamics of the strategy expected returns reflects the time variation in both conditional volatility and skewness. This has first...

This study decomposes a momentum factor (MOM) in the commodity futures market. A high-to-price (HTP) factor generates a higher Sharpe ratio than a price-to-high (PTH) factor. We uncover that the profitability mechanisms across three momentum factors are different. The positive returns on MOM and...

The low degree of stock market participation (SMP) is one of the big puzzles in finance. Numerous determinants have been proposed. We put these determinants into a structure that is derived from a standard static portfolio model. Then we discuss arguments put forward regarding specific SMP...

This paper proposes to investigate the impact of financialization on energy markets (oil, gas, coal and electricity European forward prices) during both normal times and extreme fluctuation periods through an original behavioral and emotional approach. To this aim, we propose a new theoretical...

This paper proposes to investigate the impact of financialization on energy markets (oil, gas, coal and electricity European forward prices) during both normal times and extreme fluctuation periods through an original behavioral and emotional approach. To this aim, we propose a new theoretical...

Undiversifiable (or systematic risk) has long been an enemy of investors. Many countercyclical strategies have been developed to counter this. However, like all insurance types, these strategies are generally costly to implement, and over time can significantly reduce portfolio returns in long...

How do financial markets switch from states of optimism to pessimism and vice versa? Given that a financial market is currently stable, what is the probability that it will become unstable and crash? We answer those questions in the context of a natural experiment with risk sources of...

We study how firm ambiguity---Knightian uncertainty---affects investor trading behavior using the options market as a laboratory. Greater ambiguity in the underlying asset negatively relates to both options open interest and options trading volume. The reduction in options trading activity is...