EDHEC Publications
Tactical Allocation in Commodity Futures Markets: Combining Momentum and Term Structure Signals
2008
This paper examines the combined role of momentum and term structure signals for the design of profitable trading strategies in commodity futures markets. With significant annualized alphas of 10.14% and 12.66% respectively, the momentum and term structure strategies appear profitable when implemented individually. A revisited version of this working paper was published in the October 2010 issue of the Journal of Banking and Finance.
Low-Cost Momentum Strategies
2008
The article analyses the impact of trading costs on the profitability of momentum strategies in the UK and concludes that losers are more expensive to trade than winners. The observed asymmetry in the costs of trading winners and losers crucially relates to the high cost of selling loser stocks with small size and low trading volume. Since transaction costs severely impact net momentum profits, the paper defines a new low-cost relative-strength strategy by shortlisting from all winner and loser stocks those with the lowest total transaction costs. A revisited version of this paper was...
The Value Premium and Time-Varying Volatility
2008
Numerous studies have documented the failure of the static and conditional capital asset pricing models to explain the differences in returns between value and growth stocks. This paper examines the post-1963 value premium by employing a model that captures the time-varying total risk of the value-minus-growth portfolios. The results show that the conditional variance model incorporating time-varying idiosyncratic risk can fully capture the post-1963 value premium. The conclusion is robust to the criterion used to sort stocks into value and growth portfolios, to the inclusion of the size...
Fundamental Differences? Comparing Alternative Index Weighting Mechanisms
2008
le an ever increasing share of equity assets is invested in indexing strategies, the standard practice of using capitalisation weighting to construct stock market indices has been the object of much criticism. In response to this criticism, equity indices with different weighting schemes have emerged. Some indices use "fundamental" metrics (Arnott, Hsu, and Moore 2005) to weight the component stocks. In recent years, the market for such characteristics-based indices has grown tremendously, with more and more providers launching and offering them. Institutional investors have allocated...
The Divergence of Legal Procedures
2008
Djankov et al. (2003a) propose and measure for 109 countries in the year 2000 an index of formalism of legal procedure for two simple disputes: eviction of a non-paying tenant and collection of a bounced check. For a sub-sample of 40 countries, that authors compute this index every year starting in 1950, which allows them to study the evolution of legal rules. They find that between 1950 and 2000 the formalism of legal procedure did not converge, and possibly diverged, between common law and French civil law countries. At least in this specific area of law, the results are inconsistent with...
EDHEC Hedge Fund Reporting Survey 2008
2008
Like any investors, investors in hedge funds are naturally interested in knowing how hedge fund managers allocate their initial investment, and whether this allocation yields positive returns or not. It is not only information on past investment returns that is of particular interest; prospects for future gains or losses are relevant to investors as well. Yet, unlike mutual funds, hedge funds are reluctant to provide detailed information on their investment portfolios. Since many hedge funds use highly speculative investment strategies, fund managers fear that a thorough disclosure of their...
Oil Prices: the True Role of Speculation
2008
To analyse the significant variations in oil prices over the past year, EDHEC have produced a new position paper entitled "Oil Prices: the True Role of Speculation," which argues that, despite the appeal of blaming speculators, supply-and-demand imbalances, the fall in the dollar and low spare capacity in the oil-producing countries are the major causes of this sharp rise.
Banking: Why does regulation alone not suffice? Why must governments intervene?
2008
If all institutional investors are bound by regulations that force them to sell risky assets during downturns, these assets will ultimately be absorbed by unregulated long-term investors. Additional examination shows that, in the current environment, sovereign wealth funds and governments are the possible buyers of these assets. As public intervention entails moral hazard, it follows that for the stability of the financial system throughout the business cycle regulations must be improved.
A Comparison Of Fundamentally Weighted Indices: Overview And Performance Analysis
2008
This paper analyses a set of characteristics-based indices that have recently been launched on the US market and have been said to outperform standard market cap-weighted indices over particular backtest samples. The EDHEC authors, Noël Amenc, Felix Goltz and Véronique Le Sourd, analyse the performance of an exhaustive list of such indices and show that the outperformance over value-weighted indices may be negative over long time periods and that characteristics-based indices do not significantly outperform simple equal-weighted indices. Furthermore, an analysis of both the style exposures...
Hedge Fund Analysis — Reading the Multi-Factor Tea Leaves
2008
During the last few years, there has been growing interest in the use of factor models for performing risk and exposure analysis of hedge funds. While interpreting directional and spread related factors in this context is fairly straightforward, interpreting non-linear options exposures often is not. Given the variety of activities that can produce options exposures, the interpretation of multi-factor output in this regard can be more of an art than a science. This paper explores the variety of hedge fund manager activities that can drive options exposures in multi-factor analysis.
QIS4: significant improvements, but the main risk for life insurance is not taken into account in the standard formula
2008
In its response to the CEIOPS consultation on the preliminary technical specifications for the fourth quantitative impact survey (QIS4), EDHEC argues that the main risk faced by life insurance companies is not taken into account in the standard formula. This risk is that following market (or other significant) losses, a wave of surrenders leaves shareholders bearing the entirety of losses. This is the phenomenon that led to such bankruptcies as that of Executive Life, where losses made public by rating agencies and the media triggered a wave of surrenders and bankruptcy–even though the losses...
Hedge Fund Performance in 2007
2008
In a context of moderate performance in the stock and bond markets in 2007, Funds of Hedge Funds, which are often taken to give an aggregate view of the industry’s performance, returned 10.07% on average for the year, compared to 3.53% for the S&P 500 and 4.14% for the Lehman Global US Treasury Bond index.
Intelligent Commodity Investing: Opportunities and Challenges
2008
This article discusses the historical underpinning of the current boom in commodity prices and alerts the busy reader to some unexpected pitfalls when investing in this theme. It concludes with some observations on how to potentially take advantage of this asset class’s opportunities.
Conditional Correlations and Real Estate Investment Trusts
2008
This paper studies the temporal variations in the conditional correlations between REIT returns and equity, bond and commodity returns. While REITs are often presented as useful tools for diversification, little is known of the way their returns correlate with the returns of other asset classes over time and in periods of high volatility. This paper addresses this issue and draws two conclusions. First, the correlations between REITs and equity returns rose over the period analyzed, while the correlations with bonds and commodities fell. This indicates to equity portfolio managers that real...
Conditional Return Correlations between Commodity Futures and Traditional Assets
2008
The article studies the temporal variations in the conditional return correlations between commodity futures and traditional asset classes (global stock and fixed-income indices). It reveals that the conditional correlations between commodity futures and S&P500 returns fell over time, a sign that commodity futures have become better tools for strategic asset allocation. The correlations with equity returns also fell in periods of above average volatility in equity markets. We see this as welcome news to long institutional investors as they need the benefits of diversification most in...
EDHEC European Investment Practices Survey 2008
2008
As part of its ongoing policy of monitoring asset management practices and comparing them with the results of academic research, the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre undertook an in-depth survey of the risk management, portfolio construction, strategic allocation, and performance measurement practices of European asset managers and investors. The EDHEC European Investment Practices Survey is built on a sample of 229 institutional investors and asset managers who, with respect both to the nationality of survey respondents and to the amount of assets under management, are largely...
Empirical Properties of Straddle Returns
2008
Recent studies find that a position in at-the-money (ATM) straddles consistently yields losses. This is interpreted as evidence for the non-redundancy of options and as a risk premium for volatility risk. This paper analyses this risk premium in more detail by i) assessing the statistical properties of ATM straddle returns, ii) linking these returns to exogenous factors and iii) analysing the role of straddles in a portfolio context. A revisited version of this paper was published in the Fall 2009 issue of the Journal of Derivatives.
Fees at Risk
2008
Hull (2007) writes: “For an asset manager the greatest risk is operational risk”. In 2008, however, asset management companies came under severe pressure not from operational risk, but from market risk. What had been seen as an annuity stream that was thought to expose firms to little or no earnings risk turned out to be directional stock market exposure combined with high operational leverage. A revisited version of this working paper was published in the Fall 2010 issue of the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance.
Prudence with Multiplicative Risk
2008
In this paper we analyze the conditions under which the presence of a multiplicative background risk induces a more “prudent” behavior. We show that the results from Kimball (1990) concerning the convexity of the marginal utility are no longer sufficient with multiplicative risk. An agent is multiplicative risk prudent when the coefficient of relative prudence is greater than two. We introduce the concept of quintessence in order to guarantee the decrease of relative temperance. Both decreasing relative prudence and decreasing relative temperance are sufficient to guarantee more “prudent”...
Overlay Hedging in a Fund of Funds
2008
Hedge funds are often referred to as absolute return strategies, yet investors are aware that most hedge funds do in fact take on a variety of systematic and quasi-systematic exposures. If a manager of a fund of hedge funds (FoF) finds that the exposure of the FoF to a certain systematic exposure or the risk level broadly has become excessive, then the FoF manager may want to hedge. The purpose of this article is to outline the major issues involved with overlay hedging in a fund of funds portfolio and to provide relevant solutions to these issues. These include the determination of whether...
Production-Based Asset Pricing in a Monetary Economy: Theory and Evidence
2008
This paper develops a capital asset pricing model based on the production side of a monetary economy. Relying on a general version of the standard Real Business Cycle model with cash and credit goods, we find that the factors determining the mean excess returns on financial assets are i) real capital growth, ii) the nominal interest rate and iii) the capital-to-wealth ratio. Our model is parsimonious in that the results rely neither on any particular specification of the production function nor on capital adjustment costs. Empirical evidence gives strong support to the presence of the...
Some Insiders Are Indeed Smart Investors
2008
Not all insiders are the same; some are more effective than others in processing the information they have access to, and invest their own wealth accordingly. We used a database with transactions from the U.K. market to identify insiders with superior market timing abilities. For the period 1994 to 2006 we showed that informative insider trades can be identified ex ante through certain characteristics of the transactions and the firm itself. Moreover, we showed how outsiders could benefit from this information.
EDHEC European Real Estate Investment and Risk Management Survey
2007
The EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre has released a new survey that is drawn from its research programme in asset allocation and alternative diversification. This programme has led to extensive research on the benefits, risks, and integration methods of alternative classes and instruments in asset allocation.
Rating the Ratings: A Critical Analysis of Fund Rating Systems
2007
Fund ratings are a widely used tool for fund promoters and fund subscribers. They serve to evaluate fund performance on a risk and return basis in an easily understandable way, and allow the performance of different funds to be compared. In this context, the quality and the robustness of the ratings is a critical subject for both investment management firms and investors. Though the predictive capability of fund ratings has not been proved, numerous studies performed on US mutual funds have concluded that fund subscribers are widely influenced by fund ratings in making their choice. A...
Hide-and-Seek in the Market : Placing and Detecting Hidden Orders
2007
This paper investigates why traders hide their orders and how other traders respond to hidden depth. Using a logit model, the authors provide empirical findings suggesting that traders use hidden orders to manage both exposure risk and picking off risk. Using probit models, they show that hidden depth increases order aggressiveness. The authors' interpretation of this empirical evidence is threefold. First, hidden depth detection is possible and frequent. Second, when traders detect hidden volume at the best opposite quote, they strategically adjust their order submission to seize the...
Momentum Strategies in Commodity Futures Markets
2007
The article looks at the performance of 56 momentum and contrarian strategies in commodity futures markets. The authors build on the research of Erb and Harvey (2006) who focus on one momentum strategy. While contrarian strategies do not work, 13 momentum strategies are found to be profitable in commodity futures markets over horizons that range from 1 to 12 months. A revisited version of this paper was published in the June 2007 issue of the Journal of Banking and Finance.
Reactions to the EDHEC Study "Assessing the Quality of Stock Market Indices"
2007
A recent publication by the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre has drawn conclusions that highlight the shortcomings of well known capitalisation- or price-weighted stock market indices and argues that the choice of benchmark for asset allocation or performance measurement is a task requiring particular care. In a call for reactions to this publication, EDHEC finds that the answers of the more than eighty respondents (asset management firms, pension funds, insurance companies, private banks, etc.) tend to reinforce the conclusions drawn by the original publication. Although it...
Three Early Lessons from the Subprime Lending Crisis: A French Answer to President Sarkozy
2007
European leaders, eager for an explanation absolving them of responsibility, have once again laid blame on the seemingly detrimental role played by hedge funds in this summer’s crisis. This crisis is the result of a sudden fall in asset prices, combined with increased aversion to risk on the part of investors. To suggest that hedge funds are to blame for this crisis is simplistic but tempting, as their speculative, unregulated, and opaque nature make them easy targets - all the while, more delicate market and regulatory issues are avoided. So, as a counterpoint to these accusations that often...
A Comparison of Alternative Approaches for Determining the Downside Risk of Hedge Fund Strategies
2007
This paper compares a number of different approaches for determining the Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) of hedge fund investment strategies. The authors compute VaR and ES through completely model-free methods, as well as through mean/variance and distribution model-based methods. Among the models considered certain specifications can technically address autocorrelation, asymmetry, fat tails, and time-varying variances which are typical characteristics of hedge fund returns. They find that conditional mean/variance models coupled with appropriate distributional assumptions...
Hedge Fund Indices for the Purpose of UCITS: Answers to the CESR Issues Paper
2007
In a reply to the CESR Issues Paper on the eligibility of hedge fund indices for the purpose of UCITS, the EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre argues that hedge fund indices should not be required to offer more controls and more transparency than existing financial indices such as stock market indices. Likewise, their construction should not be subjected to detailed rules for choosing constituents and implementing rebalancing and weighting mechanisms.
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About EDHEC
Operating from campuses in Lille, Nice, Paris, London and Singapore, EDHEC is one of the world’s top 15 business schools. Fully international and directly connected to the business world, EDHEC commands a strong reputation for research excellence and the ability to train entrepreneurs and managers capable of breaking new ground. EDHEC functions as a genuine laboratory of ideas and produces innovative solutions valued by businesses. The School’s teaching is inspired by its research work and a focus on “learning by doing”, all with the aim of equipping people with the skills to succeed in business.
