In empirical tests of the CAPM, the theoretical risk-free asset is typically assumed to be 1-month Treasury bills. This paper examines the implications of a mis-specified risk-free asset, i.e. the possibility that the ‘true' risk-free asset is a longer-maturity Treasury bond. A simple...

In this primer, we review the classical methods for assessing the performance of a financial portfolio. The analysis relies on benchmarking the return on the portfolio with that of a peer group. We define and discuss the pros and cons of four performance metrics that are theoretically consistent...

This paper is the second in a series of critiques of the assumption that stable economic relations exist between certain "firm characteristics" and expected returns. The paper explains why this is not the case for past returns and provides theoretical, empirical, and simulated evidence that the...

What predicts returns on assets with "hard-to-value" fundamentals, such as Bitcoin and stocks in new industries? We propose an equilibrium model that shows how rational learning enables return predictability through technical analysis. We document that ratios of prices to their moving averages...

Fund trades and prices vary systematically with the quarterly reporting cycle. Funds are more likely to complete the building of a position at quarter-end, which is when most funds report positions to investors, and begin building new positions afterwards. While some of the observed shift in...

Contrary to the intuition that the standard risk-return tradeoff should lead to underperformance of a portfolio that scales down exposure during volatile periods a recent paper by Moreira and Muir (2017) actually shows that volatility-managed portfolios produce robust and significant alphas. The...

This paper documents that development exposure is an important determinant of private real estate returns and market risk exposure. It also documents that open-end private real estate funds have time-varying, procyclical market risk exposure through their development activities. As such, these...

I theoretically and empirically investigate how institutional investors with different holding horizons make investment decisions. Long-term and short-term institutions have persistent differences in their portfolio tilt with short-term institutions more willing to invest in low-return stocks....

This paper studies optimal equity portfolios with long-term horizon under heterogeneous risk aversion levels. We focus on European stocks and empirically show that contemporaneous excess returns of semi-active strategies are negatively associated with market conditions and sentiment. Consistent...

For US investors, international equity exposure has never been so readily available at such a low cost. Nonetheless, surveys indicate US investors typically allocate 80–85% of their equity holdings to US equities, much higher than their proportion of global market value. In this note we...