Q&A: Narrowly Held Risks
John Cochrane* has suggested that the historical premiums for small cap and value stocks reflect "narrowly held risks" and that these premiums are likely to shrink in the future "until the markets have...
View ArticleQ&A: Do Index Funds Contribute to Mispricing?
Index funds buy stocks "blind" without regard to company fundamentals. Do their activities contribute to mispricing of securities? EFF: Index funds typically buy cap-weighted portfolios so they do not...
View ArticleQ&A: The Equity Premium over Long Periods
A buy-and-hold for stocks appears to work well for long periods (such as 1975 - 1999) but then does poorly for extended periods as well, such as the most recent ten years. Isn't it clear that there are...
View ArticleQ&A: Hedge Funds and Securities Prices
Stock market analysts often claim that hedge funds represent a significant percentage of trading volume in securities markets. What effect, if any, do hedge funds have on stock and bond prices?...
View ArticleQ&A: Protecting Purchasing Power
U.S. budget deficits keep expanding and some of our largest trading partners have begun to question the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency. Both trends suggest a dim future for the...
View ArticleQ&A: Bonds for the Long Run?
Long-term government bonds outperformed the S&P 500 Index by 0.12% per year for the forty-year period ending March 2009. Does a negative risk premium for stocks vs. bonds over such a long period...
View ArticleQ&A: Is There a "New Normal"?
We often hear that the investment world must adjust to a "new normal", reflecting a permanent shift to greater market volatility worldwide. How should investors revise their portfolios in response to...
View ArticleQ&A: NASDAQ at 5,000: A Mistake?
Richard Thaler observes "Efficient market guys have to be willing to claim that the NASDAQ is efficiently priced at 5,000 and at 1,400. That's a tough sell." Comments? EFF: Stock prices depend on two...
View ArticleQ&A: Bear Markets and Monte Carlo Analysis
How useful was Monte Carlo-type analysis in preparing for the recent downturn in the economy and stock market? Is there an alternative approach that investors should consider in an effort to address...
View ArticleQ&A: What if Everybody Indexed?
If a growing percentage of market participants pursued passive investment strategies, at what point would market efficiency break down? Is this a practical concern? EFF/KRF: This is a complicated...
View ArticleQ&A: Is Market Efficiency the Culprit?
Justin Fox ("The Myth of the Rational Market") and many other financial writers claim that much of the blame for the financial meltdown is attributable to a misguided faith in market efficiency that...
View ArticleQ&A: Does Your Optimizer Need a Tune-Up?
The realized equity premium for U.S. stocks relative to long-term government bonds has been negative for the 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25-year periods ending in 2008 despite substantially greater standard...
View ArticleQ&A: Who Should Hold Long Term Bonds?
Is the absence of a meaningful premium for US long-term bonds relative to short-term bonds evidence of market inefficiency? Does this relation hold in other global bond markets? EFF: Unfortunately, we...
View ArticleQ&A: Financial Innovation -- A Blessing or a Curse?
Real economic risk appears to have decreased over time as global economies have become more advanced and diversified. But market risks appear to have increased due to innovative financial instruments...
View ArticleQ&A: Are Stocks Safer in the Long Run?
Lubos Pastor and Robert Stambaugh argue that long-horizon stock investors actually face more volatility than short-horizon investors. How should investors interpret this evidence? KRF: The...
View ArticleQ&A: Seeking the Best Inflation Hedge
How do TIPS and one-month Treasury bills compare as inflation hedges? EFF: TIPs are obviously a great hedge against inflation, but there is still uncertainty about the short-term real return on...
View ArticleQ&A: Can Investors Profit from Momentum?
A prominent money management firm has recently launched several mutual funds that seek to exploit the positive momentum effect in stock prices. Why does this well-publicized anomaly persist and under...
View ArticleQ&A: Do Fundamentals Tell Us When Stocks Are Overpriced?
In their book Valuing Wall Street published in early 2000, Andrew Smithers and Stephen Wright claim that the q ratio popularized by Nobel laureate James Tobin reliably identifies periods of extreme...
View ArticleQ&A: Bankrupt Firms: Who's Buying?
Why do shares of widely held bankrupt firms such as GM often trade well above zero even though the interests of common stock holders appear almost certain to be eliminated in reorganization? Is this...
View ArticleQ&A: Does Gold Belong in My Portfolio?
Based on spot price data from January 1970 through February 2010, the average return on gold bullion was almost exactly the same as the S&P 500 at 88 basis points per month. Volatility was...
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