Survey of Research on Equity Analysts [PREMIUM]
There is a decades-long stream of academic research on equity analysts as sophisticated users of financial data, focusing on the usefulness of sell-side analyst earnings forecasts and stock recommendations. What is the gist of this stream? In his June ...
Active ETF Performance [PREMIUM]
Do active exchange-traded funds (ETF), which realistically incorporate management costs and trading frictions, offer value to investors? In his June 2011 paper entitled “Active ETFs and Their Performance vis-à-vis Passive ETFs, Mutual Funds and ...
A Few Notes on The Most Important Thing
Howard Marks introduces his 2011 book, The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, by stating: “…I have built this book around the idea of the most important things–each is a brick in what I hope will be a so...
Investment Managers and Market Timing
Do professional money managers as a group successfully time the stock market? The National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) is an association of registered investment advisors who provide active money management services to their clien...
CFOs Still the Best Inside Traders? [PREMIUM]
“CFOs vs. CEOs as Inside Traders” describes research finding that, based on data through July 2002 before Sarbanes-Oxley Act implementation, investors should focus on Chief Financial Officers (CFO) as better inside traders than Chief Execut...
Holdings Return Skewness as a Luck-Skill Discriminator
Can investors discriminate between lucky and skillful equity fund managers by examining the distribution of returns across fund holdings? In the September 2010 preliminary draft of their paper entitled “Home-Run Sluggers vs. Contact Hitters: Stoc...
Value of Full-service Brokers?
Do individual investors truly benefit from using full service brokers? In the February 2011 draft of their paper entitled “What is the Impact of Financial Advisors on Retirement Portfolio Choices and Outcomes?”, John Chalmers and Jonathan R...
CFOs vs. CEOs as Inside Traders [PREMIUM]
Are Chief Financial Officers (CFO) better informed than Chief Executive Officers (CEO) when it comes to trading the stocks of their companies? In their March 2011 paper entitled “Are CFOs’ Trades More Informative than CEOs’ Trades?”, Weimin Wang, Yong-Chul Shin and Bill Francis investigate whether open market trades made by CFOs are better predictors of...
Professional Investor Groups Sharing Value (or Moving Markets) [PREMIUM]
Do online forums of arguably well-informed investors pay off for their members? In their February 2011 paper entitled “Talking Your Book: Social Networks and Price Discovery”, Wesley Gray and Andrew Kern study the sharing of valuation belie...
A Few Notes on The Power of Passive Investing
In his 2011 book The Power of Passive Investing: More Wealth with Less Work, author Richard Ferri presents “the detailed studies and undeniable evidence favoring a passive investing approach. …This information clearly shows that trying to b...
Outperformance of Hedge Funds: Timing or Asset Selection? [PREMIUM]
Does hedge fund outperformance derive from systematically superior timing or from superior asset selection? In the December 2010 version of her paper entitled "Can Factor Timing Explain Hedge Fund Alpha?", Hyuna Park decomposes alpha generated by hedge...
Evolving Informativeness of Insider Trading [PREMIUM]
Have regulatory changes, such as the reduction in lag time for reporting insider trades specified by the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) from up to 40 calendar days to two business days, improved the informativeness of insider trading data? In his Decemb...
