There has been considerable research into dynamic global tactical asset allocation (GTAA) strategies driven by simple measures of Valuation and Momentum applied to a baseline balanced portfolio of equities and fixed income (see Blitz and van Vliet 2008, Wang and Kochard 2011, Gnedenko and Yelnik...

We construct investor sentiment indices for six major stock markets and decompose them into one global and six local indices. In a validation test, we find that relative sentiment is correlated with the relative prices of dual-listed companies. Global sentiment is a contrarian predictor of...

Stock return predictability by investor sentiment has been subject to constant updating, but reaching a decisive conclusion seems rather challenging as academic research relies heavily on US data. We provide fresh evidence on stock return predictability in an international setting and show that...

We compare several representative sophisticated model averaging and variable selection techniques of forecasting stock returns. When estimated traditionally, our results confirm that the simple combination of individual predictors is superior. However, sophisticated models improve dramatically...

Momentum is one of the largest and most pervasive market anomalies. However, despite a high mean and Sharpe ratio, momentum suffers from large negative skewness that comes from momentum crash periods. These crashes occur in times of both market stress and market rebound and thus variables that...

Many financial instruments are designed with embedded leverage such as options and leveraged exchange traded funds (ETFs). Embedded leverage alleviates investors' leverage constraints and, therefore, we hypothesize that embedded leverage lowers required returns. Consistent with this hypothesis,...

Investing in financial securities inevitably involves risks on the one hand and opportunities on the other hand. This thesis bundles four different studies on risks and/or opportunities in financial markets. In one study, we examine the cross-sectional explanatory power of different...

Black-Litterman model provides a reasonable platform to portfolio optimization and asset allocation by presenting an equilibrium state of the markets and only deviating from that equilibrium state with forward-looking strategic views. Index of Economic Freedom (IEF) can be used as a handy tool...

This study sheds new light on the question of whether or not sentiment surveys, and the expectations derived from them, are relevant to forecasting economic growth and stock returns, and whether they contain information that is orthogonal to macroeconomic and financial data. I examine 16...