We provide evidence on the role of commodity futures in portfolios comprised of stocks, bonds, T‐bills, and real estate. Over the period investigated (1973–1997), Markowitz optimization over a range of risk levels gives substantial weight to commodity futures, thereby enhancing the...

Brocato and Steed (1998) showed that portfolio rebalancing based on NBER business cycle turning points substantially improves in-sample Markowitz efficiency. In a similar vein, we investigate potential improvements from rebalancing based on turning points in the monetary cycle. We find that the...

Ample evidence shows that size and book-to-market equity explain significant cross-sectional variation in stock returns, whereas betas contribution is minimal or nonexistent. Recent studies also demonstrate that proxies for monetary stringency increase the explained variation in stock returns....