The 52-week high momentum strategy in international stock markets

We study the 52-week high momentum strategy in international stock markets proposed by George and Hwang [George, T., Hwang, C.Y., 2004. The 52-week high and momentum investing. Journal of Finance 59, 2145-2176.]. This strategy produces profits in 18 of the 20 markets studied, and the profits are significant in 10 markets. The 52-week high momentum profits exist independently from the Jegadeesh and Titman [Jegadeesh, N., Titman, S., 1993. Returns to buying winners and selling losers: implications for market efficiency. Journal of Finance 48, 65-91.] individual stock and Moskowitz and Grinblatt [Moskowitz, T.J., Grinblatt, M., 1999. Do industries explain momentum? Journal of Finance 54, 1249-1290] industry momentum strategies. These profits do not show reversals in the long run. We find that the 52-week high is a better predictor of future returns than macroeconomic risk factors or the acquisition price. The individualism index, a proxy to the level of overconfidence, has no explanatory power to the variations of the 52-week high momentum profits across different markets. However, the profits are no longer significant in most markets once transaction costs are taken into account.     

The timing of 52-week high price and momentum

We propose a new momentum strategy based on the timing of a stock’s 52-week high price. We find that the stocks that attained the 52-week high price in the recent past significantly outperform the stocks that attained the 52-week high price in the distant past. In particular, the top 10% of the stocks with the most recent 52-week high price outperform the bottom 10% of the stocks with most distant 52-week high price by 0.70% per month. Further, conditioning on the recency of 52-week high price significantly increases the profitability of momentum strategy based on the nearness of current price to the 52-week high price. Specifically, the average monthly return of this strategy is about twice as large for stocks with recent 52-week high price as compared with stocks with distant 52-week high price.     

The 52-week high,momentum, and investor sentiment

This paper examines the link between the profitability of the 52-week high momentum strategy and investor sentiment. We hypothesize that investors' investment decisions are subject to behavioral biases when the level of investor sentiment is high, resulting in higher profits for the 52-week high momentum following high-sentiment periods. Our empirical results confirm this prediction. In addition, we find that the significant profit of the 52-week high momentum following high-sentiment periods persists up to five years. Further investigations show that the strong persistence of the 52-week high winners (losers) is concentrated in stocks with higher (lower) earnings surprises, especially during periods following high sentiment. Overall, our results provide supportive evidence for the anchoring biases in explaining the 52-week high momentum, especially when the role of investor sentiment is taken into account.     

Tests of technical trading rules and the 52-week high strategy in the corporate bond market

This article presents the first tests of technical trend-following rules (TTRs) and the 52-week high strategy in individual corporate bonds, along with comparisons to corresponding stocks. Over the 2002–2015 period, TTR and the 52-week strategy are unprofitable in both bonds and stocks. Short legs of these trend-following strategies lead to significant losses in corporate bonds, which can be interpreted as evidence of bond investors' overreaction to bad news. Thus, short-term contrarian strategies, the profitability of which is viewed as the reward to liquidity provision, are more rewarding in corporate bonds. TTR buy signals can predict lower-volatility days in bonds as in stocks, despite the low/negative return correlations between the two.     

The 52-week high,momentum, and predicting mutual fund returns

George and Hwang (J Finance 59:2145–2176, 2004) have shown that the 52-week high share price carries significant predictive ability for individual stock returns, dominating other common momentum-based trading strategies. Based upon their results and other methods, this paper examines and compares the performance of three momentum trading strategies for mutual funds, including an analogous 1-year high measure for the net asset value of mutual fund shares. Strategies based on prior extreme returns and on fund exposure to stock return momentum are also examined. Results show that all three measures have significant, independent, predictive ability for fund returns. Further, each produces a distinctive pattern in momentum profits, whether measured in raw or risk-adjusted returns, with profits from momentum loading being the least transitory. Nearness to the 1-year high and recent extreme returns are significant predictors of fund monthly cash flows, whereas fund momentum loading is not.     

Target price forecasts: The roles of the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment

This paper reveals that in addition to fundamental factors, the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment play an important role in analysts’ target price formation. Analysts’ forecasts of short-term earnings and long-term earnings growth are shown to be important explanatory variables for target prices; equally, the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment are also shown to explain target price levels and especially target price biases. Our analysis additionally reveals that analysts place greater weight on these two non-fundamental factors in settings with greater task complexity and to some extent in those with greater resource constraints. Conversely, on balance, the results suggest that this increased reliance does not translate into an increased impact per unit of each non-fundamental factor on forecast bias. Finally, our results show that target prices are useful in predicting future stock returns beyond earnings forecasts and commonly used risk proxies. However, in an internally consistent fashion, the informativeness of target prices for future returns is significantly reduced when greater weight is placed on either the 52-week high or recent investor sentiment in the target price formation process.     

Risk-managed 52-week high industry momentum,momentum crashes and hedging macroeconomic risk

This is the first study to investigate the profitability of Barroso and Santa-Clara’s [J. Financial Econ., 2015, 116, 111–120] risk-managing approach for George and Hwang’s [J. Finance, 2004, 59, 2145–2176] 52-week high momentum strategy in an industrial portfolio setting. The findings indicate that risk-managing adds value as the Sharpe ratio increases, and the downside risk decreases notably. Even after controlling for the spread of the traditional 52-week high industry momentum strategy in association with standard risk factors, the risk-managed version generates economically and statistically significant pay-offs. Notably, the risk-managed strategy is partially explained by changes in cross-sectional return dispersion, whereas the traditional strategy does not appear to be exposed to such economic risks.     

International comparison of returns from conventional,industrial and 52-week high momentum strategies

The performance of industrial and 52-week high momentum strategies is compared to the conventional strategy, using a large sample of stocks drawn from multiple countries covering a quarter of century to 2007. The sample of 51,879 stocks in 51 countries removes the potential for criticism, such as data mining, and provides more generalisable findings and knowledge concerning the robustness and usefulness of return from momentum strategies. Both the industry and 52-week high strategies generate positive returns but neither is greater than the conventional momentum strategy. A new 52-week high industry momentum strategy is examined and it achieves a similar result.     

The change in information uncertainty and acquirer wealth losses

A large body of literature demonstrates that acquisitions are on average value destroying for the acquirer. We investigate whether the change in the acquirer??s information uncertainty contributes to acquirer wealth losses. Information uncertainty affects the discount rate (the cost of capital), which in turn influences stock price. Our results indicate that acquisitions lead to increases in information uncertainty, as proxied by analysts?? earnings forecast dispersion. We also find that the change in information uncertainty is negatively related to acquirer long-term stock performance, after controlling for the acquirer??s fundamentals. Taken together, this evidence is consistent with the conclusion that increases in information uncertainty resulting from acquisitions contribute to acquirer post-acquisition wealth losses     

Corporate strategy and information disclosure

We examine voluntary disclosures of information about corporate strategies. We develop a model in which managers choose whether to reveal their strategic plans only to some partners of the firm or also to the outside world. We show that managers face a tradeoff when deciding whether to disclose their private information to outsiders. On the one hand, by disclosing their intentions, managers become reluctant to change their minds in the future. This may lead them to make inefficient project implementation decisions. On the other hand, information disclosure about corporate strategy provides strong incentives for partners of the firm to undertake strategy‐specific investments.     

The effect of economic policy uncertainty on investor information asymmetry and management disclosures

Investor uncertainty about firm value drives investors’ information collection and trading activities, as well as managers’ disclosure choices. This study examines an important source of uncertainty that likely cannot be influenced by most managers and investors: uncertainty about government economic policy. We find that this uncertainty is associated with increased bid-ask spreads and decreased stock price reactions to earnings surprises. Managers respond to this uncertainty by increasing their voluntary disclosures, but these disclosures only partly mitigate the bid-ask spread increase. We conclude that government economic policy uncertainty is an important component of firms’ information environments and managers’ voluntary disclosure decisions.     

Informed trading,information uncertainty,and price momentum

In this paper we investigate the effects of informed trading (PIN) and information uncertainty in determining price momentum. We find that trading strategies based on buying high-uncertainty good-news stocks and shorting high-uncertainty bad-news stocks work well when limited to high-PIN stocks, while stocks with low-PIN do not exhibit price continuations, even when the uncertainty level of those stocks is high. In contrast, momentum returns are always significant for high-PIN stocks, irrespective of information uncertainty. Overall, we show that the informed trading effect is both independent of and stronger than that of information uncertainty in determining price momentum.     

Make-or-buy in the presence of uncertainty and private information

In textbook discussions of the make-or-buy problem, outsourcing is often justified on technological grounds. Suppliers may have better equipment, more capacity, or benefit from economies of scale. This teaching note demonstrates that even when technological issues are absent, outsourcing can be preferred. The benefit to outsourcing arises because the price set by a self-interested supplier can convey information to a buyer. Information conveyed by a supplier allows the firm to better tailor its production to the circumstance. The case also provides students an opportunity to apply basic concepts from economics, statistics, and mathematics to a common managerial accounting problem.     

Information uncertainty,information asymmetry and corporate bond yield spreads

This study examines the effects of information uncertainty and information asymmetry on corporate bond yield spreads using American data from 2001 to 2006. Empirical results of this study show that investors charge a significant risk premium for both information uncertainty and information asymmetry when controlling for variables well known in the literature. The results are robust even when controlling for credit ratings. Finally, information uncertainty and asymmetry help structural-form credit models explain the yield spreads of bonds with short maturities.     

2017年全球经济面临不确定性很高

2017年的主题词就是全球经济的非常不确定性.这个不确定性从三个方面可以看出: 第一,全球经济的不确定性反映在有三个比较重要的数值上:一是I M F预测说2016年全球经济增长是3.1%,2017年可能不会比这个增幅好;二是在全球经济复苏比较缓慢的情况下,全球的贸易增长缓慢, W T O预测2106年的商品贸易量的增长只有1.7%,比3.1%的全球经济增长还差,而贸易增长量增长的缓慢已经是第五年了,从2016年开始出现了一个新的趋势,就是发达国家的进出口的增长好于新兴市场(我讲的不是价值,不包含价格的波动,就是它的商品量).     

银行信息系统安全保障策略

计算机技术的广泛应用和网络技术的日益普及,使银行业务对计算机的依赖性越来越高。银行业涉及国计民生和国家安全,其业务运行必须建立在安全基础之上。信息系统安全已经成为关系到银行业务能否顺利开展的重要因素。银行信息系统的安全保障要以缜密的分析为前提,制定详细的对策     

Welfare effects of information and rationality in portfolio decisions under parameter uncertainty

We analyse and quantify, in a financial market with parameter uncertainty and for a Constant Relative Risk Aversion investor, the utility effects of two different boundedly rational (i.e. sub-optimal) investment strategies (namely, myopic and unconditional strategies) and compare them with each other and with the utility effect of full information. We show that effects are mainly caused by full information and predictability, being the effect of learning marginal. We also investigate the saver's decision regarding whether to manage her/his portfolio personally (DIY investor) or hire, against the payment of a management fee, a professional investor and find that delegation is mainly motivated by the belief that professional advisors are, depending on investment horizon and risk aversion, either better informed (‘insiders’) or more capable of gathering and processing information, rather than possessing the ability to learn from financial data. In particular, for very short investment horizons, delegation is primarily, if not exclusively, motivated by the beliefs that professional investors are better informed.     

The information transfer effects of political connections on mitigating policy uncertainty: Evidence from China

A key aspect of Chinese-style institutions is that the growth of the economy can be severely restricted by the adjustment and implementation of policy, leading to serious uncertainty in business practices. This paper investigates whether political connections help private firms obtain policy information ahead of public disclosure that would allow them to hedge against policy uncertainty. Using the quarterly data on non-financial private listed companies over 2007:Q1–2017:Q4, we find that the negative effect of policy uncertainty on fixed-asset investment is lower in politically connected firms than in non-connected firms, especially in industries with low asset reversibility and regions with a high degree of marketization. Further, a positive mitigation of policy uncertainty exists in firms whose top executives served as officials rather than deputies, and higher administrative as well as finance-related political connections show more information advantage. In addition, robust evidence is provided that controls the impacts of political connections on financing constraints, business performance and policy burdens, overcoming potential endogeneity, and the cash-holdings perspective. Our findings suggest that political connections are conducive to mitigate information asymmetry between private firms and policymakers in China.     

Political uncertainty and firms' information environment: Evidence from China

How political uncertainty affects the supply of value relevant information about a firm is an important but unresolved question. Using an emerging market setting where political leaders are expected to exert significant influence on economic activities, we examine the effect of political uncertainty caused by turnovers of local government leaders on a firm’s information environment. We find that during periods of political uncertainty, the total amount of idiosyncratic information about a firm that is available to the market is reduced. The adverse effect on information supply is manifest in firms that are more politically dependent and stronger when uncertainty is more severe. Further, we provide evidence suggesting that firms react to political uncertainty by reducing the amount and the quality of information provided to investors. We find that information intermediaries such as financial analysts and the media have a moderating effect on the information environment as they increase the production of information during periods of political uncertainty. However, these intermediaries do not negate the net loss of information.     

Machine learning for US cross-industry return predictability under information uncertainty

This paper investigates the association between industry information uncertainty and cross-industry return predictability using machine learning in a general predictive regression framework. We show that controlling for post-selection inference and performing multiple tests improves the in-sample predictive performance of cross-industry return predictability in industries characterized by high uncertainty. Ordinary least squares post-least absolute shrinkage and selection operator models incorporating lagged industry information uncertainty for the financial and commodity industries are critical to improving prediction performance. Furthermore, in-sample industry return forecasts establish heterogeneous predictability over US industries, in which excess returns are more predictable in sectors with medium or low uncertainty.