The profitability of momentum portfolios in the equity markets is derived from the continuation of stock returns over medium time horizons. The empirical evidence of momentum, however, is significantly different across markets around the world. The purpose of this dissertation is to: 1) help global investors determine the optimal selection and holding periods for momentum portfolios, 2) evaluate the profitability of the optimized momentum portfolios in different time periods and market states, 3) assess the investment strategy profits after considering transaction costs, and 4) interpret momentum returns within the framework of prior studies on investors’ behavior. Improving on the traditional practice of selecting arbitrary selection and holding periods, a genetic algorithm (GA) is employed. The GA performs a thorough and structured search to capture the return continuations and reversals patterns of momentum portfolios. Three portfolio formation methods are used: price momentum, earnings momentum, and earnings and price momentum and a non-linear optimization procedure (GA). The focus is on common equity of the U.S. and a select number of countries, including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The findings suggest that the evolutionary algorithm increases the annualized profits of the U.S. momentum portfolios. However, the difference in mean returns is statistically significant only in certain cases. In addition, after considering transaction costs, both price and earnings and price momentum portfolios do not appear to generate abnormal returns. Positive risk-adjusted returns net of trading costs are documented solely during “up” markets for a portfolio long in prior winners only. The results on the international momentum effects indicate that the GA improves the momentum returns by 2 to 5% on an annual basis. In addition, the relation between momentum returns and exchange rate appreciation/depreciation is examined. The currency appreciation does not appear to influence significantly momentum profits. Further, the influence of the market state on momentum returns is not uniform across the countries considered. The implications of the above findings are discussed with a focus on the practical aspects of momentum investing, both in the U.S. and globally.

我們在此文中檢視了股市流動性的動能效果，並將此效果連結到相對應股票的報酬表現上。我們發現過去六個月平均流動性較高的股票，在未來三年中也會具有較高的流動性。此外，我們發現買入較高流動性的股票，賣出流動性較低的股票，會有正的報酬。我們希望此研究能夠幫助投資人獲取更多有用的資訊。 / We examine the predictability of liquidity, the momentum effect in liquidity, and we also would like to link this effect to expected stock returns. We find that stocks with high liquidity in the past six month will be traded with high liquidity in the future (within 3 years) and that all of the zero-cost portfolios, which buy high liquidity stocks and sell low liquidity stocks, have positive returns. We hope the results in this study will help uninformed trader to obtain more information in the stock market.

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Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Several studies have shown that abnormal returns can be generated simply by buying past winning stocks and selling past losing stocks. Being able to predict future price behaviour by past price movements represents a direct challenge to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, a centrepiece of contemporary finance. Fund managers have attempted to exploit this effect, but reliable footage of the performance of such funds is very limited. Several academic studies have documented the presence of the momentum effect across different markets and between different periods. These studies employ trading rules that might be helpful to establish whether the momentum effect is present in a market or not, but have limited practical value as they ignore several practical constraints. The number of shares in the portfolios formed by academic studies is often impractical. Some studies (e.g. Conrad & Kaul, 1998) require holding a certain percentage of every share in the selection universe, resulting in an extremely large number of shares in the portfolios. Others create portfolios with as little as three shares (e.g. Rey & Schmid, 2005) resulting in portfolios that are insufficiently diversified. All academic studies implicitly require extremely high portfolio turnover rates that could cause transaction costs to dissipate momentum profits and lead the returns of such strategies to be taxed at an investor’s income tax rate rather than her capital gains tax rate. Depending on the tax jurisdiction within which the investor resides these tax ramifications could represent a tax difference of more than 10 percent, an amount that is unlikely to be recovered by any investment strategy. Critics of studies documenting positive alpha argue that momentum returns may be due to statistical biases such as data mining or due to risk factors not effectively captured by the standard CAPM. The empirical tests conducted in this study were therefore carefully designed to avoid every factor that could compromise the results and hinder a meaningful interpretation of the results. For example, small-caps were excluded to avoid the small firm effect from influencing the results and the tests were conducted on two different samples to avoid data mining from being a possible driver. Previous momentum studies generally used long/short strategies. It was found, however, that momentum strategies generally picked short positions in volatile and illiquid stocks, making it difficult to effectively estimate the transaction costs involved with holding such positions. For this reason it was chosen to test a long-only strategy. Three different strategies were tested on a sample of JSE mid-and large-caps on a replicated S&P500 index between January 2000 and September 2009. All strategies yielded positive abnormal returns and the null hypothesis that feasible momentum strategies cannot generate statistically significant abnormal returns could be rejected at the 5 percent level of significance for all three strategies on the JSE sample. However, further analysis showed that the momentum profits were far more pronounced in “up” markets than in “down” markets, leaving macroeconomic risk as a possible explanation for the vast returns generated by the strategy. There was ample evidence for the January anomaly being a possible driver behind the momentum returns derived from the S&P500 sample. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Verskillende studies het gewys dat abnormale winste geskep kan word deur eenvoudig voormalige wenner aandele te koop en voormalige verloorder aandele te verkoop. Die moontlikheid om toekomstige prysgedrag te voorspel deur na prysbewegings uit die verlede te kyk is ‘n direkte uitdaging teen die “Efficient Market Hypothesis”, wat ’n kernstuk van hedendaagse finansies is. Fondsbestuurders het gepoog om hierdie effek te benut, maar akademiese ondersteuning vir die gedrag van sulke fondse is uiters beperk. Verskeie akademiese studies het die teenwoordigheid van die momentum effek in verskillende markte en oor verskillende periodes uitgewys. Hierdie akademiese studies benut handelsreëls wat gebruik kan word om te bepaal of die momentum effek wel in die mark teenwordig is al dan nie, maar is van beperkte waarde aangesien hulle verskeie praktiese beperkings ignoreer. Sommige studies (Conrad & Kaul, 1998) vereis dat 'n sekere persentasie van elke aandeel in die seleksie-universum gehou moet word, wat in oormatige groot aantal aandele in die portefeulle tot gevolg het. Ander skep portefeuljes met so min as drie aandele (Rey & Schmid, 2005), wat resulteer in onvoldoende gediversifiseerde portefeuljes. Die hooftekortkoming van alle akademiese studies is dat hulle portefeulleomsetverhoudings van hoër as 100% vereis wat daartoe sal lei dat winste uit sulke strategieë teen die belegger se inkomstebelastingskoers belas sal word in plaas van haar kapitaalaanwinskoers. Afhangende van die belastingsjurisdiksie waaronder die belegger val, kan hierdie belastingseffek meer as 10% beloop, wat nie maklik deur enige belegginsstrategie herwin kan word nie. Kritici van studies wat abnormale winste dokumenteer beweer dat sulke winste ‘n gevolg kan wees van statistiese bevooroordeling soos die myn van data, of as gevolg van risikofaktore wat nie effektief deur die standaard CAPM bepaal word nie. Die empiriese toetse is dus sorgvuldig ontwerp om enige faktor uit te skakel wat die resultate van hierdie studie sal kan bevraagteken en ‘n betekenisvolle interpretasie van die resultate kan verhinder. Die toetse sluit byvoorbeeld sogenaamde “small-caps” uit om die klein firma effek uit te skakel, en die toetse is verder op twee verskillende monsters uitgevoer om myn van data as ‘n moontlke dryfveer vir die resultate uit te skakel. Normaalweg toets akademiese studies lang/ kort nulkostestrategieë. Dit is gevind dat momentum strategieë oor die algemeen kort posisies kies in vlugtige en nie-likiede aandele, wat dit moeilik maak om die geassosieerde transaksiekoste effektief te bepaal. Daar is dus besluit om ’n “lang-alleenlik” strategie te toets. Drie verskillende strategieë is getoets op ‘n steekproef van JSE “mid-caps” en “large-caps” en op ‘n gerepliseerde S&P500 index tussen Januarie 2000 en September 2009. Alle strategieë het positiewe abnormale winste opgelewer, en die nul hipotese dat momentum strategieë geen statisties beduidende abnormale winste kan oplewer kon op die 5% vlak van beduidendheid vir al drie strategieë van die JSE monster verwerp word. Verdere analiese het wel getoon dat momentumwinste baie meer opvallend vertoon het in opwaartse markte as in afwaartse markte, wat tot die gevolgtrekking kan lei dat makro-ekonomiese risiko ‘n moontlike verklaring kan wees. Daar was genoegsaam bewyse vir die Januarie effek as ‘n moontlike dryfveer agter die momentum-winste in die S&P500 monster.

Value and momentum strategies have been heavenly researched in financial academic literature. In this essay, different portfolios based on value and momentum strategies have been constructed to examine if it is possible to exploit market anomalies to outperform market returns. Both value and momentum is seen as two market anomalies according to earlier literature. The test were made on the Swedish market, and all data were collected from the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm Large Cap list. The findings includes a significant outperformance of market returns in nearly all portfolio tested, as well as lower standard deviations for some. However, an empirical asset pricing model, based on four factors from the Swedish market were constructed to seek explanation for the results. Overall the factor variables were rejected on their statistical significances, except for the market factor which were statistical significant for all portfolios except one.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the returns of momentum strategies and macroeconomic factors. The empirical results indicate that the phenomenon of underreaction is found in Taiwan stock market in the short term, and adoption of momentum strategies can slightly result in significant positive abnormal returns, while no phenomenon of overreaction is found in the long term, and no significant positive abnormal returns are gained if the contrarian strategies are applied. After dividing the market status into bull market and bear market, we find that the underreaction phenomenon appears in the bull market in the short term, and significant positive returns may be gained if the momentum strategies are used; on the other hand, the overreaction phenomenon appears in the bear market in the long term, and the adoption of contrarian strategies may offer significantly positive returns. In addition, either positive or negative excess returns of momentum strategies are found in the bull and bear markets. The value of (alpha) of the returns mostly exceeds zero after the adjustment of Fama and French three-factor model. Finally, the predictive value of macroeconomic analysis and the analysis of returns of momentum strategies reveal that the rate of return of momentum strategies is higher when the expected rate of return of macro economy in the bull market is getting lower, and the rate of return of momentum strategies is lower while the expected rate of return of macro economy in the bear market is high. We conclude that macroeconomic factors are unrelated to the returns of momentum strategies, regardless of bull market or bear market.

This study mainly investgates the investment performance of momentum strategies and contrarian strategies in Taiwan stock market. There are three purposes in this paper. First, we examine whether the momentum strategies and contrarian strategies can create significant profits under different formulation horizons and holding horizons, then we discuss the reasons for the profits of significant profits strategies, including risk, seasonality, industrial momentum, time series predictability of stock returns and cross-sectional variation in the mean returns, and stock underreation, overreaction, and random walk. Second, we derive the mix strategies from the combination of momentum strategies and contrarian strategies for the same holding horizons and test the investment performance of mix strategies empirically. Finally, we study whether the investment strategies of stock mutual funds in Taiwan are industrial momentum strategies or industrial contrarian strategies, and which strategies can create better industrial investment performance. The main conclusions and suggestions are as follows: First, we find the momentum strategies are more successful in Taiwan as a whole, especially from 1991/1/1 to 2000/12/31. There are only three significant profits strategies in 147 strategies totally for three different test periods, including the (24,24) strategy and (36,24) strategy from 1991/1/1 to 2000/12/31, and (1,12) strategy from 1981/1/1 to 1990/12/31. For the reasons of the profits of the three strategies, we find the negative alphas in the F&F three factors model and underreation from the decreasing returns in the post holding horizons, so we should use the momentum strategies very carefully in Taiwan stock market. Second, we find the success of mix strategies theoretically and empirically. Nevertheless, we can¡¦t increase the profits for considering more different sub-strategies if there are no successful sub-strategies with different formulation horizons. Finally, we find the investment strategies of stock mutual funds almost are industrial momentum strategies, which realized significantly better industrial performance then the industrial contrarian strategies. It suggests that the industrial momentum strategies are not irrational and can increase the speed of adjustment of industrial index to its intrinsic value. On the other hand, stock mutual funds can perform well by the momentum strategies without superior information collection and analysis.

The study is based on the study of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993, 2001) which found evidence of succesfull trading strategies which yielded significant positive abnormal returns by exploiting a momentum pattern in stock prices. The purpose of this study is to contribute with empirical results to the discussions of efficient markets, momentum effects and behavioral finance by providing evidence from the Swedish stock market between the years 1998 and 2013. The conclusion is that there exists a Momentum Effect on the Swedish stock market. The utilization of momentum strategies yields significant positive abnormal returns. The Efficient Market Hypothesis is a model which might hold in the long-term, but shows limitations in the short-term. The implications of the results of this study are that short-term investor behavior and momentum profits might be partially explained by behavioral finance models but the origin of the momentum profits need to be further evaluated.

Bakgrund & Problemformulering: Momentumeffekten på fondmarknaden är ett relativt outforskat område där dess existens på senare tid har blivit omtvistad. Eftersom kunskapen om pensionssparande och det svenska pensionssystemet är låg, samtidigt som de sociala skyddsnäten i samhället minskar är det viktigt att undersöka om momentumstrategier kan ge överavkastning för privatpersoners pensionssparande. Således ställs frågan: Kan momentumstrategier skapa överavkastning på fondmarknaden? Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka momentumeffekten på fondmarknaden och om momentumstrategier kan utnyttjas av svenska pensionssparare för att skapa överavkastning i PPM-systemet. Metod: Uppsatsen har ett kvantitativt tillvägagångssätt och en deduktiv utgångspunkt tillämpas. För att undersöka momentumeffekten på fondmarknaden tillämpas en multipel regressionsanalys med Fama French-Trefaktormodell, samt Sharpekvot. Uppsatsens urval är PPM-fonder under perioden 2010-2017. Slutsatser: Uppsatsen finner inget statistiskt stöd för en momentumeffekt på fondmarknaden genom Fama French-Trefaktormodell. Detta är ett tecken på att fondmarknaden kan vara svagt effektiv då historisk information inte har kunnat användas för att skapa riskjusterad överavkastning. Uppsatsen finner således ingen momentumeffekt för fondmarknaden efter finanskrisen 2008, trots att en momentumeffekt har kunnat påvisas dessförinnan inom tidigare forskning. Med hänsyn till det har författarna anledning att misstänka att marknadens effektivitet kan variera, vilket skulle kunna förklaras av den Adaptiva Marknadshypotesen. / Background & Problem: The momentum effect in the fund market is relatively unexplored were its existence has been controversial. Due to the lack of knowledge in retirement savings and the Swedish Premium Pension Agency system, alongside the weakening of a social safety net, it is important to examine if momentum strategies give excess returns and can be used for retirement savings. Therefore, the authors question: Do momentum strategies give excess returns in the fund market? Purpose: The aim of the thesis is to examine the momentum effect in the fund market and if momentum strategies can be used to create excess return in the Premium Pension Agency system. Method: The thesis takes a deductive research approach with a quantitative methodology. To examine the momentum effect in the fund market, a multiple regression analysis model from Fama French-Three factor model is applied, and the Sharpe ratio. The sample for the study is Swedish Premium Pension Agency funds, which is examined over the period of 2010-2017. Conclusions: The thesis does not find support for a momentum effect in the fund market through the Fama French-Three factor model. This indicates that the fund market is weak form efficient, as historical information cannot be used to create risk adjusted excess return. Thus, the thesis does not find a momentum effect for the fund market after the financial crisis in 2008, even though a momentum effect is proven to exist before then. In view of this, the authors have reason to suspect the market efficiency to vary, which could be explained by the Adaptive Market Hypothesis.

Submitted by Daniel dos Santos Teixeira (dateixe@hotmail.com) on 2014-07-16T16:40:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FGV EPGE - Daniel Teixeira - Rentabilidade de Estratégias de Momento no Ibovespa.pdf: 417636 bytes, checksum: 519cb5e6f82f17e9aef27888f099002c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Gisele Gammaro (gisele.gammaro@fgv.br) on 2014-08-29T17:23:33Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 FGV EPGE - Daniel Teixeira - Rentabilidade de Estratégias de Momento no Ibovespa.pdf: 417636 bytes, checksum: 519cb5e6f82f17e9aef27888f099002c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-23T13:58:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FGV EPGE - Daniel Teixeira - Rentabilidade de Estratégias de Momento no Ibovespa.pdf: 417636 bytes, checksum: 519cb5e6f82f17e9aef27888f099002c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-30 / This paper presents the use of Beta and Beta variation of assets belonging to the Bovespa as new criteria for the construction new srategies of winners and losers portfolios. The results show that the strategies currently on the basis of varying Betas and Beta variation of assets belonging to the Bovespa index, generate positive returns over the subsequent periods of 6 or 12 months, but it showed that these strategies, when applied in everychange of Brazil's main stock index, were less profitable than the usual strategies based on the total return on assets in the period 1995-2013. / Este artigo apresenta a utilização de Beta e variação de Beta dos ativos pertencentes ao Ibovespa como novos critérios para a construção de carteiras vencedoras e perdedoras em estratégias de momento. Os resultados mostram que as estratégias de momento, com base em critérios de maior ou menor Beta e de variação de Beta dos ativos pertencentes ao Ibovespa, geram retornos positivos ao longo de períodos subsequentes de 6 meses e 12 meses, porém apontam que estas estratégias, quando aplicadas e renovadas a cada mudança do principal índice bursátil brasileiro, apresentaram-se menos rentáveis do que as estratégias habituais baseadas no retorno total dos ativos no período entre 1995 a 2013.