Flirting with Models

The Research Library of Newfound Research

Author: Nathan Faber Page 1 of 5

Nathan is a Portfolio Manager at Newfound Research. At Newfound, Nathan is responsible for investment research, strategy development, and supporting the portfolio management team.

Prior to joining Newfound, he was a chemical engineer at URS, a global engineering firm in the oil, natural gas, and biofuels industry where he was responsible for process simulation development, project economic analysis, and the creation of in-house software.

Nathan holds a Master of Science in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon University and graduated summa cum laude from Case Western Reserve University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Mathematics.

Option-Based Trend Following

By

On June 23, 2020

In Risk Management, Trend, Weekly Commentary

This post is available as a PDF download here.

Summary

  • The convex payoff profile of trend following strategies naturally lends itself to comparative analysis with option strategies.
  • To isolate the two extremes of paying for whipsaw – either up front or in arrears – we replicate an option strategy that buys 1-month at-the-money calls and puts based on the trend signal.
  • We find that while option premiums steadily eat away at the balance of the options portfolio, the avoidance of large whipsaw events gives the strategy a boost at key times over the past 15 years, especially recently.
  • We examine how this whipsaw cost fits into the historical context of the options strategy and explore some simple ways to shift between the option-based trend following and the standard model.
  • The extent that whipsaw can be mitigated while still maintaining the potential to earn diversified returns is likely limited, but the optimal blend of trend following and options can be a beneficial guideline for investors to weather both sudden and prolonged drawdowns.

The non-linear payoff of trend following strategies has many similarities to options strategies, and by way of analogy, we can often gain insight into which market environments will favor trend following and why.

In our previous research piece, Straddles and Trend Following, we looked at purchasing straddles – that is, a call option and a put option – with a strike price tied to the anchor price of the trend following model. For example, if the trend following model invested in equities when the return over the past 12 months was positive, for a security that was at $100 12-months ago and is at $120 today, we would purchase a call and a put option with a strike price of $100. In this case, the call would be 20% in-the-money (ITM) and the put would be out-of-the-money (OTM).

In essence, this strategy acted like an insurance policy where the payout was tied to a reversion in the trend signal, and the premium paid when the trend signal was strong was small.

This concept of insurance is an important discussion topic in trend following strategies. The risk we must manage in these types of strategies, either directly through insurance or some other indirect means like diversification, is whipsaw.

In this commentary, we will construct an options strategy that is similar to a trend following strategy. The option strategy will pay a premium up-front to avoid whipsaw. By comparing this strategy to trend following that bears the full risk of whipsaw, we can set a better practical bound for how much investors should expect to pay or earn for bearing this risk.

Methodology and Data

For this analysis, we will use the S&P 500 index for equity returns, the 1-year LIBOR rate as the risk-free rate, and options data on the S&P 500 (SPX options).

To bridge the gap between practice and abstraction, we will utilize a volatility surface calibrated to real option data to price options. We will constrain our SPX options to $5 increments and interpolate total implied variance to get prices for options that were either illiquid or not included in the data set.

For the most part, we will stick to options that expire on the third Friday of each month and will mention when we deviate from that assumption.

The long/short trend equity strategy looks at total returns of equities over 12 months. If this return is positive, the strategy invests in equities for the following month. If the return is negative, the strategy shorts equities for the following month and earns the risk-free rate on the cash. The strategy is rebalanced monthly on the options expiration dates.

For the option-based trend strategy, on each rebalance date, we will purchase a 1-month call if the trend signal is positive or a put if the trend signal is negative. We will purchase all options at-the-money (ATM) and hold them to expiration. The strategy is fully cash-collateralized. Any premium is paid on the options roll date, interest is earned on the remaining account balance, and the option payout is realized on the next roll date.

Why are we now using ATM options when previous research used ITM and OTM options, potentially deeply ITM or OTM?

Here we are looking to isolate the cost of whipsaw in the premium paid for the option while earning a payout that is close to that of the underlying in the event that our trend signal is correct. If we utilized OTM options, then our premium would be lower but we would realize smaller gains if the underlying followed the trend. ITM options would have downside exposure before the protection kicked in.

We are also not using straddles since we do not want to pay extra premium for the chance to profit off a whipsaw. The underlying assumption here is that there is value in the trend following signal. Either strategy is able to capitalize on that (i.e. it’s the control variable); the strategies primarily differ in their treatment of whipsaw costs.

The High Cost of ATM Options

The built-in whipsaw protection in the options does not come cheap. The chart below shows the –L/S trend following strategy–, the –option-based trend strategy–, and the ratio of the two (dotted).Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research.  Returns are hypothetical and backtested.  Returns are gross of all fees including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

During normal market environments and even in prolonged equity-market drawdown periods like 2008, trend following outperformed the option-based strategy. Earning the full return on the underlying equity is generally beneficial.

However, something that is “generally beneficial” can be erased very quickly. In March 2020, the trend following strategy reverted back to the level of the option-based strategy. If you had only looked at cumulative returns over those 15 years, you would not be able to tell much difference between the two.

The following chart highlights these tail effects.

Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research.  Returns are hypothetical and backtested.  Returns are gross of all fees including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

In most months, the option-based strategy forfeits its ~1.5% premium for the ATM option. The 75th percentile cutoff is 2.2% and the 90th percentile cutoff is 2.9%. These premiums have occasionally spiked to 6-7%.

While these premiums are not always forfeited without some offsetting gain, they are always paid relative to the trend following strategy.

A 3% whipsaw event in trend should definitely not be a surprise based on the typical up-front cost of the option strategy.

Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research.

But What About a 30% Whipsaw?

Now that’s a good question.

Up until March 2020, for the 15 years prior, the largest whipsaws relative to the options strategy were 12-13%. This is the epitome of tail risk, and it can be disheartening to think that now that we have seen 30% underperformance, we should probably expect more at some point in the (hopefully very distant) future.

However, a richer sample set can shed some light on this very poor performance.

Let’s relax our assumption that we roll the options and rebalance the trend strategies on the third Friday of the month and instead allow rebalances and rolls on any day in the month. Since we are dealing with one-month options, this is not beyond implementation since there are typically options listed that expire on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The chart below shows all of these option strategies and how large of an effect that roll / rebalance timing luck can have.

Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research.  Returns are hypothetical and backtested.  Returns are gross of all fees including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

With timing luck in both the options strategies and trend following, there can be large effects when the luck cuts opposite ways.

The worst returns between rebalances of trend following relative to each options strategy highlight how bad the realized path in March 2020 truly was.

Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research.  Returns are hypothetical and backtested.  Returns are gross of all fees including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

In many of the trend following and option strategies pairs, the worst underperformance of trend following over any monthlong period was around 10%.

Returning to the premise that the options strategies are analogous to trend following, we see the same effects of timing luck that we have explored in previous research: effects that make comparing variants of the same strategy or similar strategies more nuanced. Whether an option strategy is used for research, benchmarking, or active investing, the implications of this timing luck should be taken into account.

But even without taking a multi-model approach at this point to the options strategy, can we move toward a deeper understanding of when it may be an effective way to offset some of the risk of whipsaw?

I’d Gladly Pay You Tuesday for a Whipsaw Risk Today

With the two extremes of paying for whipsaw up front with options and being fully exposed to whipsaw through trend following, perhaps there is a way to tailor this whipsaw risk profile. If the risk of whipsaw is elevated but the cost of paying for the insurance is cheap, then the options strategy may be favorable. On the other hand, if option premiums are high, trend following may more efficiently capture the market returns.

The price of the options (or their implied volatilities) is a natural place to start investigating this topic since it encapsulates the premium for whipsaw insurance. The problem is that it may not be a reliable signal if there is no barrier to efficiency in the options market, either behavioral or structural.

Comparing the ATM option implied volatilities with the trend signal (12-month trailing returns), we see a negative correlation, which indicates that the options-based strategy will have a higher hurdle rate of return in strongly downtrending market environments.

Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research. 

But this is only one piece of the puzzle.

Do these implied volatilities relate to the forward 1-month returns for the S&P 500?

Based on the above scatterplot: not really. However, since we are merely sticking implied volatility in the middle of the trend following signal and the forward return, and we believe that trend following works over the long run, then we must believe there is some relationship between implied volatility and forward returns.

While this monthly trend following signal is directionally correct over the next month 60% of the time, historically, that says nothing about the magnitude of the returns based on the signal.

Without looking too much into the data to avoid overfitting a model, we will set a simple cutoff of 20% implied volatility. If options cost more than that, we will utilize trend following. If they cost less, we will invest in the options strategy.

We will also compare it to a 50/50 blend of the two.

Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research.  Returns are hypothetical and backtested.  Returns are gross of all fees including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

The switching strategy (gray line) worked well until around 2013 when the option prices were cheap, but the risk of whipsaw was not realized. It did make it through 2015, 2016 and 4Q 2018 better than trend following.

When viewed in a broader context of a portfolio, since these are alternative strategies, it does not take a huge allocation to make a difference. These strategies manage equity risk, so we can pair them with an allocation to the S&P 500 (SPY) and see how the aggregate statistics are affected over the period from 2005 to April 2020.

The chart below plots the efficient frontiers of allocations to 100% SPY at the point of convergence on the right of the graph) to 40% SPY on the left of the graph with the remainder allocated to the risk- management strategy.

The Sharpe ratio is maximized at a 35% allocation to the switching strategy, a 25% allocation to the option-based strategy, and 10% for the trend following strategy.

Source: DiscountOptionsData.com.  Calculations by Newfound Research.  Returns are hypothetical and backtested.  Returns are gross of all fees including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

Conclusion

In this research note, we explored the link between trend following and options strategies using 1-month ATM put and call options, depending on the sign of the trend.

The cost of ATM options Is generally 1.5% of the portfolio value, but the fact that this cost can spike upwards of 9% should justify larger whipsaws in trend following strategies. Very large whipsaws, like in March 2020, not only show that the cost can be seemingly unbounded but also that there is significant exposure to timing luck based upon the option roll dates.

Then, we moved on to investigating a simple way to allocate between the two strategies based upon the cost of the options, When the options were cheap, we used that strategy, and when they were expensive, we invested in the trend following strategy. A modest allocation is enough to make a different in the realized efficient frontier.

Deciding to pay the up-front payment of the whipsaw insurance premium, bear the full risk a whipsaw, or land somewhere in between is largely up to investor preferences. It is risky to have a large downside potential, but the added benefit of no premiums can be enough to offset the risk.

An implied volatility threshold was a rather crude signal for assessing the risk of whipsaw and the price of insuring against it. Further research into one or multiple signals and a robust process for aggregating them into an investment decision is needed to make more definitive statements on when trend following is better than options or vice versa. The extent that whipsaw can be mitigated while still maintaining the potential to earn diversified returns is likely limited, but the optimal blend of trend following and options can be a beneficial guideline for investors to weather both sudden and prolonged drawdowns.

Straddles and Trend Following

By

On May 11, 2020

In Momentum, Portfolio Construction, Risk Management, Trend, Weekly Commentary

This post is available as a PDF download here.

Summary

  • The convex payoff profile of trend following strategies naturally lends itself to comparative analysis with option strategies. Unlike options, however, the payout of trend following is not guaranteed.
  • To compare and contrast the two approaches, we replicate simple trend following strategies with corresponding option straddle strategies.
  • While trend-following has no explicit up-front cost, it also bears the full brunt of any price reversals. The straddle-based approach, on the other hand, pays an explicit cost to insure against sudden and large reversals.
  • This transformation of whipsaw risk into an up-front option premium can be costly during strongly trending market environments where the option buyer would have been rewarded more for setting a higher deductible for their implicit insurance policy and paying a lower premium.
  • From 2005-2020, avoiding this upfront premium was beneficial. The sudden loss of equity markets in March 2020, however, allowed straddle-based approaches to make up for 15-years of relative underperformance in a single month.
  • Whether an investor wishes to avoid these up-front costs or pay them is ultimately a function of the risks they are willing to bear. As we like to say, “risk cannot be destroyed, only transformed.”

We often repeat the mantra that, “risk cannot be destroyed, only transformed.” While not being able to destroy risk seems like a limitation, the assertion that risk can be transformed is nearly limitless.

With a wide variety of investment options, investors have the ability to mold, shape, skew, and shift their risks to fit their preferences and investing requirements (e.g. cash flows, liquidity, growth, etc.).

The payoff profile of a strategy is a key way in which this transformation of risk manifests, and the profile of trend following is one example that we have written much on historically. The convex payoff of many long/short trend following strategies is evident from the historical payoff diagram.

Source: Newfound Research. Payoff Diversification (February 10th, 2020). Source: Kenneth French Data Library; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Calculations by Newfound Research. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. The 60/40 portfolio is comprised of a 60% allocation to broad U.S. equities and a 40% allocation to a constant maturity 10-Year U.S. Treasury index.  The momentum portfolio is rebalanced monthly and selects the asset with the highest prior 12-month returns whereas the buy-and-hold variation is allowed to drift over the 1-year period. The 10-Year U.S. Treasuries index is a constant maturity index calculated by assuming a 10-year bond is purchased at the beginning of every month and sold at the end of that month to purchase a new bond at par at the beginning of the next month. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

This characteristic “V” shape in the diagram is reminiscent of an option straddle, where an investor buys a put and call option of the same maturity struck at the same price.  This position allows the investor to profit if the price of the underlying security moves significantly in either direction, but they pay for this opportunity in the option premiums.

Source: theoptionsguide.com

The similarity of these payoff profiles is no coincidence.  As we demonstrated in Trend – Convexity and Premium (February 11th, 2019), simple total return trend following signals coarsely approximate the delta of the straddle.  For those less familiar with the parlance of options, delta is the sensitivity in the value of the options to changes in the underlying stock.  For example, if delta is +1, then the value of the option position will match price changes in the underlying dollar-for-dollar.  If delta is -1, then the position will lose $1 for every dollar gained in the underlying and vice versa (i.e. the position is effectively short).

How does this connection arise?  Consider a naïve S&P 500 trend strategy that rebalances monthly and uses 12-month total returns as a trend signal, buying when prior returns are positive and shorting when prior returns are negative.  The key components of this strategy are today’s S&P 500 level and the level 12 months ago.

Now consider a strategy that buys a 1-month straddle with a strike equal to the level of the S&P 500 12 months ago.  When the current level is above the strike, the strategy’s delta will be positive and when the level is below the strike, the delta will be negative.  What we can see is that the sensitivity of our options trade to changes in the S&P 500 will match the sign of the trend strategy!

There are two key differences, however.  First, our trend strategy was designed to always be 100% long or 100% short, whereas the straddle’s sensitivity can vary between -100% and 100%.  Second, the trend strategy cannot change its exposure intramonth whereas the straddle will.  In fact, if price starts above the strike price (a positive trend) but ultimately ends below – so far as it is sufficiently far that we can make up for the premium paid for our options – the straddle can still profit!

In this commentary, we will compare and contrast the trend and option-based approaches for a variety of lookback horizons.

Methodology and Data

For this analysis, we will use the S&P 500 index for equity returns, the iShares Short-term U.S. Treasury Bond ETF (ticker: SHV) as the risk-free rate, and monthly options data on the S&P 500 (SPX options).

The long/short trend equity strategy looks at total returns of equities over a given number of months. If this return is positive, the strategy invests in equities for the following month. If the return is negative, the strategy shorts equities for the following month and earns the short-term Treasury rate on the cash. The strategy is rebalanced monthly on the third Friday of each month to coincide with the options expiration dates.

For the (semi-equivalent) straddle replication, at the end of each month we purchase a call option and a put option struck at the level of the S&P 500 at the beginning of the lookback window of the trend following strategy. We can also back out the strike price using the current trend signal value and S&P 500.  For example, if the trend signal is 25% and the S&P 500 is trading at $3000, we would set the strike of the options at $2400.

The options account is assumed to be fully cash collateralized. Any premium is paid on the options roll date, interest is earned on the remaining account balance, and the option payout is realized on the next roll date.

To value the options, we employ Black-Scholes pricing on an implied volatility surface derived from available out-of-the money options. Specifically, on a given day we fit a parabola to the implied variances versus log-moneyness (i.e. log(strike/price)) of the options for each time to maturity.

In prior research, we created straddle-derived trend-following models by purchasing S&P 500 exposure in proportion to the delta of the strategy.  To calculate delta, we had previously priced the options using 21-day realized volatility as a proxy for implied volatility.  This generally leads to over-pricing the options during crisis times and underpricing during more tame market environments, especially for deeper out of the money puts.  In this commentary we are actually purchasing the straddles and holding them for one month.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Straddle vs. Trend Following

Below we plot the ratio of the equity curves for the straddle strategies versus their corresponding trend following strategies. When the line is increasing, the straddle strategy is out-performing, and when the line is decreasing the trend strategy is out-performing.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

We can see, generally, that trend following out-performed the explicit purchase of options for almost all lookback periods for the majority of the 15-year test period.

It is only with the most recent expiration – March 20, 2020 – that many of the straddle strategies came to out-perform their respective trend strategies.  With the straddle strategy, we pay an explicit premium to help insure our position against sudden and large intra-month price reversals.  This did not occur very frequently during the 15 year history, but was very valuable protection in March when the trend strategies were largely still long coming off markets hitting all-time-highs in late February.

Shorter-term lookbacks fared particularly well during that month, as the trend following strategy was in a long position on the February 2020 options expiry date, and the straddles set by the short-term lookback window were relatively cheap from a historical perspective.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Note the curious case of the 14-month lookback.  Entering March, the S&P 500 was +45% over a 14-month lookback (almost perfectly anchored to December 2018 lows).  Therefore, the straddle was struck so deep in the money that it did not create any protection against the market’s sudden and large drawdown.

Prior to March 2020, only the 8- and 15-month lookback window strategies had outperformed their corresponding trend following strategies.  In both cases, it was just barely and just recently.

Another interesting point to note is that longer-term straddle strategies (lookbacks greater than 9 months) shared similar movements during many periods while shorter-term lookbacks (3-6 months) showed more dispersion over time.

Overall, many of the straddles exhibit more “crisis alpha” than their trend following counterparts.  This is an explicit risk we pay to hedge with the straddle approach and a fact we will discuss in more detail later on.

How Equity Movements Affect Straddles

Before we move into a discussion of how we can frame the straddle strategies, it will be helpful to revisit how straddles are affected by changing equity prices and how this effect changes with different lookback windows for the strategies.

Consider the delta of a straddle versus how far away price is from the strike (normalized by volatility).

Naively, we might consider that the longer our trend lookback window – and therefore the further back in time we set our strike price – the further away from the strike that price has had the opportunity to move. Consider two extremes: a strike set equal to the price of the S&P 500 10 years ago versus one set a day ago. We would expect that today’s price is much closer to that from a day ago than 10 years ago.

Therefore, for a longer lookback horizon we might expect that there is a greater chance that the straddle is currently deeper in the money, leading to a delta closer to +/- 1.  In the case of straddles struck at index levels more recently realized, it is more likely that price is close to at the money, leading to deltas closer to 0.

This also means that while the trend following strategy is taking a binary bet, the straddle is able to modulate exposure to equity moves when the trend is less pronounced. For example, if a 12-month trend signal is +1%, the trend model will retain a +1 exposure while the delta of the straddle may be closer to 0.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Additionally, when the delta of a straddle is closer to zero, its gamma is higher.  Gamma reflects how quickly the straddle’s sensitivity to changes in the underlying asset – i.e. the delta – will change.  The trend strategy has no intra-month gamma, as once the position is set it remains static until the next rebalance.

As we generally expect the straddles struck longer ago to be deeper in the money than those struck more recently, we would also expect them to have lower gamma.

This also serves to nicely connect trend speed with the length of the lookback window. Shorter lookback windows are associated with trend models that change signals more rapidly while longer lookback windows are slower. Given that a total return trend signal can be thought of as the average of daily log returns, we would expect a longer lookback to react more slowly to recent changes than a shorter lookback because the longer lookback is averaging over more data.

But if we think of it through the lens of options – that the shorter lookback is coarsely replicating the delta of a straddle struck more recently – then the ideas of speed and gamma become linked.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

The Straddle Strategy as an Insurance Policy

One of the key differences between the trend strategy and the straddle is that the straddle has features that act as insurance against price reversals.  As an example, consider a case where the trend strategy has a positive signal.  To first replicate the payoff, the straddle strategy buys an in-the-money call option.  This is the first form of insurance, as the total amount this position can lose is the premium paid for the option, while the trend strategy can lose significantly more.

The straddle strategy goes one step further, though, and would also buy a put option.  So not only does it have a fixed loss on the call if price reverses course, but it can also profit if it reverses sufficiently.

One way to model the straddle strategies, then, is as insurance policies with varying deductibles. There is an up-front premium that is paid, and the strategy does not pay out until the deductible – the distance that the option is struck in the money – is met.

When the deductible is high – that is, when the trend is very strong in either direction – the premium for the insurance policy tends to be low.  On the other hand, a strategy that purchases at the money straddles would be equivalent to buying insurance with no deductible.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

On average, the 3-month straddle strategy pays annual premiums of about 14% for the benefit of only having to wait for a price reversal of 6% before protection kicks in. Toward the other end of the spectrum, the 12-month strategy has an annual average premium of under 6% with a 16% deductible.

We can also visualize how often each straddle strategy pays higher premiums by looking at the deltas of the straddles over time. When these values deviate significantly from +1 or -1, then the straddle is lowering its insurance deductible in favor of paying more in premium. When the delta is nearly +1 or -1, then the straddle is buying higher deductible insurance that will take a larger whipsaw to payout.

The charts below show the delta over time in the straddle strategies vs. the trend allocation for 3-, 6-, and 12-month lookback windows.

There is significant overlap, especially as trends get longer. The differences in the deltas in the 3-month straddle model highlight its tradeoff between lower deductibles and higher insurance premiums. However, this leads it to be more adaptive at capitalizing on equity moves in the opposite direction that lead to losses in the binary trend-following model.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

The chart below shows the annualized performance of the straddle strategies when they underperform trend following (premium) and the annualized performance of the straddle strategies when they outperform trend following (payout). As the lookback window increases, both of these figures generally decline in absolute value.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Even though we saw previously that the 3-month straddle strategy had the highest annual premium, its overall payout when it outperforms trend following is substantial. The longer lookbacks do not provide as much of a buffer due to their higher deductible levels, despite their lower premiums.

When the naïve trend strategy is right, it captures the full price change with no up-front premium.  When it is wrong, however, it bears the full brunt of losses.

With the straddle strategy, the cost is paid up front for the benefit to not only protect against price reversals, but even potentially profit from them.

As a brief aside, a simpler options strategy with similar characteristics would be to buy only either a call option or put option depending on the trend signal. This strategy would not profit from a reversion of the trend, but it would cap losses. Comparing it to the straddle strategies highlights the cost and benefit of the added protection.

Source: Tiingo and DiscountOptionData.com. Calculations by Newfound Research.

Buying only puts or calls generally helped both of the strategies shown in the chart. This came in reduced premiums over a time period when trimming premiums whenever possible paid off, especially for the 12-month lookback strategy. However, there are some notable instances where the extra protection of the straddle was very helpful, e.g. August 2011 and late 2014 for the 3-month lookback strategy and March 2020 for both.

Despite the similarities between the options and trend strategies, this difference in when the payment is made – either up-front in the straddle strategy or after-the fact in whipsaw in the trend following strategy – ends up being the key differentiator.

The relative performance of the strategies shows that investors mostly benefitted over the past 15 years by bearing this risk of whipsaw and large, sudden price-reversals. However, as the final moths of data indicates, option strategies can provide benefits that option-like­ strategies cannot.

Ultimately, the choice between risks is up to investor preferences, and a diversified approach that pairs strategies different convex strategies such as trend following and options is likely most appropriate.

Conclusion

The convex payoff profile of trend following strategies naturally lends itself to comparative analysis with option strategies, which also have a convex payoff profile. In fact, we would argue – as we have many times in the past – that trend following strategies coarsely replicate the delta profile of option straddles.

In this commentary, we sought to make that connection more explicit by building option straddle strategies that correspond to a naïve trend following strategies of varying lookback lengths.

While the trend following approach has no explicit up-front cost, it risks bearing the full brunt of sudden and large price reversals.  With the straddle-based approach, an investor explicitly pays an up-front premium to insure against these risks.

When evaluated through the lens of an insurance policy, the straddle strategy dynamically adjusts its associated premium and deductible over time.  When trends are strong, for example, premiums paid tend to be lower, but the cost is a higher deductible.  Conversely, when trends are flat, the premium is much higher, but the deductible is much lower.

We found that over the 2005-2020 test period, the cost of the option premiums exceeded the cost of whipsaw in the trend strategies in almost all cases.  That is, until March 2020, when a significant and sudden market reversal allowed the straddle strategies to make up for 15 years of relative losses in a single month.

As we like to say: risk cannot be destroyed, only transformed.  In this case, the trend strategy was willing to bear the risk of large intra-month price reversals to avoid paying any up-front premium.  This was a benefit to the trend investor for 15 years.  And then it wasn’t.

By constructing straddle strategies, we believe that we can better measure the trade-offs of trend following versus the explicit cost of insurance.  While trend following may approximate the profile of a straddle, it sacrifices some of the intra-month insurance qualities to avoid an up-front premium.  Whether this risk trade-off is ultimately worth it depends upon the risks an investor is willing to bear.

One Hedge to Rule Them All

By

On March 30, 2020

In Craftsmanship, Portfolio Construction, Risk Management, Weekly Commentary

This post is available as a PDF download here.

Summary

  • About two years ago, we compared and contrasted different approaches to risk managing equity exposure; including fixed income, risk parity, managed futures, tactical equity, and options-based strategies.
  • Given the recent market events as the world navigates through the COVID-19 crisis, we revisit this analysis to see how these strategies would have fared over the past two years.
  • We find that all eight strategies studied have continued to successfully reduce risk, with two of the previously underperforming options-based strategies now jumping to the forefront of the pack.
  • Over time, performance of the risk management strategies still varies significantly both relative to the S&P 500 and compared to the other strategies. Generally, risk-managed strategies tend to behave like insurance, underperforming on the upside and outperforming on the downside.
  • Diversifying your diversifiers by blending a number of complementary risk-managed strategies together – even at random – can be a powerful method of improving long-term outcomes.

“The primary requirement of historical time is that inly one of the possible alternatives coming at you from the future can be actualized in the present where it will flow into the pat and remain forever after unalterable. You may sometimes have “another chance” and be able to make a different choice in some later present, but this can in no way change the choice you did in fact make in the first instance.”

– Dr. William G. Pollard, Prof. of Physics, Manhattan Project

23 trading days.

In a little over a month, the S&P 500 dropped nearly 35% from all-time highs in a sell-off that was one of the fastest in history. Many investors experienced the largest drawdowns their portfolios had seen since the Financial Crisis.

While the market currently sits in a drawdown closer to 25% (as of the time of this writing), the future remains could take any path. Following the relative calm in the market over the preceding year, we are now living through a historic time with the uncertainty and severity of the growing COVID-19 pandemic and its far-reaching ramifications.

However, as a firm that focuses on managing risk, we are used to not knowing the answers.

In the summer of 2018, we published a piece entitled The State of Risk Management where we examined the historical trade-offs in terms of returns during market downturns versus returns during calm market environments of a variety of risk management methods.

Since that time, especially with the benefit of hindsight, one might argue that risk management was unnecessary until this past month. While the S&P 500 experienced a 19% drawdown in Q4 of 2018, it quickly recovered and went on to post a gain of 32% in 2019, rewarding those who stayed the course (or, better yet, bought the dip).

Source: Tiingo. Returns are gross of all management fees, transaction fees, and taxes, but net of underlying fund fees. Total return series assumes the reinvestment of all distributions. Data through 3/27/2020.

With the future poised to follow a variety of uncertain paths, we think it is a prudent time to check in on some of the more popular ways to manage risk and see how they are handling the current events.

The Updated Historical Track Record

For risk management, we examine eight strategies that roughly fit into four categories:

  • Diversification Strategies: strategic 60/40 stock/bond mix1and risk parity2
  • Options Strategies: equity collar3, protective put4, and put-write5,6
  • Equity Strategies: long-only defensive equity that blends a minimum volatility strategy7, a quality strategy8, and a dividend growth strategy9 in equal weights
  • Trend-Following Strategies: managed futures10 and tactical equity11

Index data was used prior to fund inception when necessary, and the common inception data is December 1997.

The following charts show the return and risk characteristics of the strategies over the entire historical period. Previously, we had used maximum drawdown as a measure of risk but have now switched to using the ulcer index to quantify both the duration and severity of drawdowns.

Data Source: CBOE, Tiingo, S&P. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All returns are hypothetical index returns. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses, sales charges, or trading expenses. Index returns include the reinvestment of dividends. No index is meant to measure any strategy that is or ever has been managed by Newfound Research. Data is from December 1997 to 3/27/2020.

Data Source: CBOE, Tiingo, S&P. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All returns are hypothetical index returns. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses, sales charges, or trading expenses. Index returns include the reinvestment of dividends. No index is meant to measure any strategy that is or ever has been managed by Newfound Research. Data is from December 1997 to 3/27/2020.

Relative to when we previously presented these statistics (as of July 2018), the most notable changes are that the 95-100 Collar index and Risk Parity have improved and that Managed Futures moved into the top-performing spot up from the middle of the pack. Trend Equity dropped slightly in the rankings, which is partially attributable to our switching over to using the Newfound Trend Equity Index, which includes exposure to small- and mid-cap companies and invests in cash rather than corporate bonds for the defensive position.

Six of the eight strategies still exhibit strong risk-adjusted performance relative to the S&P over the entire time period.

But as we also showed in 2018, the dispersion in strategy performance is significant.

Data Source: CBOE, Tiingo, S&P. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All returns are hypothetical index returns. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses, sales charges, or trading expenses. Index returns include the reinvestment of dividends. No index is meant to measure any strategy that is or ever has been managed by Newfound Research. Data is from December 1997 to 3/27/2020.

This chart also highlights the current trailing one-year performance for each strategy as of 3/27/2020.

Both the 95-110 Collar and the 5% Put Protection indices are in the top 10% of their historical one-year returns, with the put protection index forging new maximum territory. Trend equity and defensive equity have exhibited returns closer to their median levels, while managed futures, strategic diversification with bonds, and risk parity have had returns above their medians.

When we examine the current market environment, this makes sense. Many options were relatively cheap (i.e. implied volatility was low) heading into and early in February, and the option rollover date was close to when the drawdown began (positive timing luck). Equity trends were also very strong coming out of 2019.

With the sharp reversal in equity prices, option strategies provided a strong static hedge that any investors had been paying premiums for through the previous years of bull market returns.

Trend equity strategies were slower to act as trends took time to reverse before cash was introduced into the portfolio, and managed futures were eventually able to capitalize on short positions and diversification once these trends were established.

Zooming in more granularly, we can see the trade-offs between the hedging performance of each strategy in down markets and the premiums paid through negative returns in up-markets. This chart shows the returns relative to the S&P 500 (SPY). When the lines are increasing (decreasing), the hedge is outperforming (underperforming). A flatter line during periods of calm markets indicates lower premiums if we think of these strategies as insurance policies.

Data Source: CBOE, Tiingo, S&P. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All returns are hypothetical index returns. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses, sales charges, or trading expenses. Index returns include the reinvestment of dividends. No index is meant to measure any strategy that is or ever has been managed by Newfound Research. Data is through 3/27/2020.

All eight strategies have provided hedging in both Q4 2018 and the current downturn. The -95-100 Collar- provided some of the lowest premiums. -Trend Equity- also provided low premiums but had a slower time getting back in the market after the hedging period in 2018.

-Managed Futures- have provided some of the best hedging through both down periods but had the highest premium during the strong market of 2019.

With the continued dispersion in performance, especially with the “new” market crisis, this highlights the importance of diversification.

Diversifying Your Diversifiers

Not every risk management strategy will perfectly hedge every downturn while also having a low cost during up markets.

We see the power of diversifying your diversifiers when we test simple equal-weight blends of the risk management strategies. In our 2018 update, we had used an equal weight blend of all eight strategies and a blend of the six strategies that had historical Sharpe ratios above the S&P 500. This latter selection was admittedly biased with hindsight. The two excluded strategies – the 95-110 Collar and the 5% Put Protection indices – were some of the best performing over the period from August 2018 to March 2020!

Our own biases notwithstanding, we still include both blends for comparison.

Both blends have higher Sharpe ratios than 6 of the 8 individual strategies and higher excess return to ulcer index ratios than all of the eight individual strategies.

This is a very powerful result, indicating that naïve diversification is nearly as good as being able to pick the best individual strategies with perfect foresight.

Data Source: CBOE, Tiingo, S&P. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All returns are hypothetical index returns. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses, sales charges, or trading expenses. Index returns include the reinvestment of dividends. No index is meant to measure any strategy that is or ever has been managed by Newfound Research. Data is through 3/27/2020.

But holding eight – or even six – strategies can be daunting, especially for more aggressive investors who may only want to allocate a small portion of their portfolio to a risk management sleeve.

How much diversification is enough?

The following charts show the distribution of risk-adjusted returns from randomly choosing any number of the 8 strategies and holding them in equal weight.

As is to be expected, the cost of choosing the “wrong” blend of strategies decreases as the number of strategies held increases. The potential benefits initially increase and then back off as the luck of choosing the “right” strategy blend is reduced through holding a greater number of strategies.

Both charts show the distributions converging for the single choice for an 8-strategy portfolio.

Data Source: CBOE, Tiingo, S&P. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All returns are hypothetical index returns. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses, sales charges, or trading expenses. Index returns include the reinvestment of dividends. No index is meant to measure any strategy that is or ever has been managed by Newfound Research. Data is through 3/27/2020.

Data Source: CBOE, Tiingo, S&P. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All returns are hypothetical index returns. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses, sales charges, or trading expenses. Index returns include the reinvestment of dividends. No index is meant to measure any strategy that is or ever has been managed by Newfound Research. Data is through 3/27/2020.

Even holding 3 or 4 of the eight risk management strategies, chosen at random, leads to robust results, in general, with narrowed bands in the distribution (e.g. 25th to 75th percentiles).

Blending strategies from each of the different categories – static diversification, options, equity, and trend-following – can further reduce concentration risk verses selection at random and ensure that a variety of risk factors within the hedging strategies (e.g. interest rates from bonds, volatility from options, beta from equity, and whipsaw from trend-following) are mitigated.

Conclusion

We’ve said it many times before: There is no holy grail when it comes to risk management. While finding the perfect hedge that beats all others in every environment is enticing, it is impossible via the simple fact that risk cannot be destroyed, only transformed.

In an uncertain world where we cannot predict exactly what the next crisis will look like – or even what the current crisis will look like after today – diversifying your diversifiers by combining a number of complementary risk-managed strategies may be a prudent course of action.

We believe that this type of balanced approach has the potential to deliver compelling results over a full market cycle while managing the idiosyncratic risk of any one manager or strategy.

Diversification can also help to increase the odds of an investor sticking with their risk management plan as the short-term performance lows won’t be quite as low as they would be with a single strategy (conversely, the highs won’t be as high either).

Developing a plan and sticking with it is the most important first step in risk management. It is obviously desirable to keep premiums in strong markets as low as possible while having efficient hedges in down markets, but simple diversification can go a long way to provide a robust results.

Risk management is, by definition, required to be in place before risks are realized. Even when the market is currently down, risks in the future are still present. Therefore, we must periodically ask ourselves, “What risks are we willing to bear?”

One potential path has been locked into history, but the next time potential risks become reality – and they inevitably will – we must be comfortable with our answer.

Diversification with Portable Beta

By

On February 18, 2020

In Craftsmanship, Portfolio Construction, Risk & Style Premia, Risk Management, Weekly Commentary

This post is available as a PDF download here.

Summary

  • A long/flat tactical equity strategy with a portable beta bond overlay – a tactical 90/60 portfolio – has many moving parts that can make attribution and analysis difficult.
  • By decomposing the strategy into its passive holdings (a 50/50 stock/bond portfolio and U.S. Treasury futures) and active long/short overlays (trend equity, bond carry, bond momentum, and bond value), we can explore the historical performance of each component and diversification benefits across each piece of the strategy.
  • Using a mean-variance framework, we are also able to construct an efficient frontier of the strategy components and assess the differences between the optimal portfolio and the tactical 90/60.
  • We find that the tactical 90/60 is relatively close to the optimal portfolio for its volatility level and that its drawdown risk profile is close to that of an unlevered 60/40 portfolio.
  • By utilizing a modest amount of leverage and pairing it will risk management in both equities and bonds, investors may be able to pursue capital efficiency and maximize portfolio returns while simultaneously managing risk.

Portable beta strategies seek to enhance returns by overlaying an existing portfolio strategy with complementary exposure to diversifying asset classes and strategies. In overlaying exposure on an existing portfolio strategy, portable beta strategies seek to make every invested dollar work harder. This idea can create “capital efficiency” for investors, freeing up dollars in an investor’s portfolio to invest in other asset classes or investment opportunities.

At Newfound, we focus on managing risk. Trend following – or absolute momentum – is a key approach we employ do this, especially in equities. Trend equity strategies are a class of strategies that aim to harvest the long-term benefits of the equity risk premium while managing downside risk through the application of trend following.

We wrote previously how a trend equity strategy can be decomposed into passive and active components in order to isolate different contributors to performance. There is more than one way to do this, but in the most symmetric formulation, a “long/flat” trend equity strategy (one that that either holds equities or cash; i.e. does not short equities) can be thought of as a 100% passive allocation to a 50/50 portfolio of stocks and cash plus a 50% overlay allocation to a long/short trend equity strategy that can move between fully short and fully long equities. This overlay component is portable beta.

We have also written previously about how a portable beta overlay of bonds can be beneficial to trend equity strategies – or even passive equity investments, for that matter. For example, 95% of a portfolio could be invested in a trend equity strategy, and the remaining 5% could be set aside as collateral to initiate a 60% overlay to 10-year U.S. Treasury futures. This approximates a 60/40 portfolio that is leveraged by 50%

Source: Newfound. Allocations are hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only.

Since this bond investment introduces interest rate risk, we have proposed ways to manage risk in this specific sleeve using factors such as value, carry, and momentum. By treating these factors as fully tactical long/short portfolios themselves, if we hold them in equal weight, we can also break down the tactical U.S. Treasury futures overlay into active and passive components, with a 30% passive position in U.S. Treasury futures and 10% in each of the factor-based strategies.

Source: Newfound. Allocations are hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only.

When each overlay is fully invested, the portfolio will hold 95% stocks, 5% cash, and 60% U.S. Treasury futures. When all the overlays are fully short, the strategy will be fully invested in cash with no bond overlay position.

While the strategy has not changed at all with this slicing and dicing, we now have a framework to explore the historical contributions of the active and passive components and the potential diversification benefits that they offer.

Diversification Among Components

For the passive portfolio 50/50 stock/cash, we will use a blend of the Vanguard Total U.S. stock market ETF (VTI) and the iShares Short-term Treasury Bond ETF (SHV) with Kenneth French data for market returns and the risk-free rate prior to ETF inception.

For the active L/S Trend Equity portfolio, we will use a long/short version of the Newfound U.S. Trend Equity Index.

The passive 10-year U.S. Treasury futures is the continuous futures contract with a proxy of the 10-year constant maturity Treasury index minus the cash index used before inception (January 2000). The active long/short bond factors can be found on the U.S. Treasuries section of our quantitative signals dashboard, which is updated frequently.

All data starts at the common inception point in May 1957.

As a technical side note, we must acknowledge that a constant maturity 10-year U.S. Treasury index minus a cash index will not precisely match the returns of 10-year U.S. Treasury futures. The specification of the futures contracts state that the seller of such a contract has the right to deliver any U.S. Treasury bond with maturity between 6.5 and 10 years. In other words, buyers of this contract are implicitly selling an option, knowing that the seller of the contract will likely choose the cheapest bond to deliver upon maturity (referred to as the “cheapest to deliver”). Based upon the specification and current interest rate levels, that current cheapest to deliver bond tends to have a maturity of 6.5 years.

This has a few implications. First, when you buy U.S. Treasury futures, you are selling optionality. Finance 101 will teach you that optionality has value, and therefore you would expect to earn some premium for selling it. Second, the duration profile between our proxy index and 10-year U.S. Treasury futures has meaningfully diverged in the recent decade. Finally, the roll yield harvested by the index and the futures will also diverge, which can have a non-trivial impact upon returns.

Nevertheless, we believe that for the purposes of this study, the proxy index is sufficient for broad, directional attribution and understanding.

Source: Kenneth French Data Library, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tiingo, Stevens Futures. Calculations by Newfound Research. Data is from May 1957 to January 2020. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

The 50/50 Stock/Cash portfolio is the only long-only holding. While the returns are lower for all the other strategies, we must keep in mind that they are all overlays that can add to the 50/50 portfolio rather than simply de-risk and cannibalize its return.

This is especially true since these overlay strategies have exhibited low correlation to the 50/50 portfolio.

The table below shows the full period correlation of monthly returns for all the portfolio components. The equity and bond sub-correlation matrices are outlined to highlight the internal diversification.

Source: Kenneth French Data Library, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tiingo, Stevens Futures. Calculations by Newfound Research. Data is from May 1957 to January 2020. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

Not only do all of the overlays have low correlation to the 50/50 portfolio, but they generally exhibit low cross-correlations. Of the overlays, the L/S bond carry and L/S bond momentum strategies have the highest correlation (0.57), and the L/S bond carry and passive bond overlay have the next highest correlation (0.47).

The bond strategies have also exhibited low correlation to the equity strategies. This results in good performance, both absolute and risk-adjusted, relative to a benchmark 60/40 portfolio and a benchmark passive 90/60 portfolio.

Source: Kenneth French Data Library, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tiingo, Stevens Futures. Calculations by Newfound Research. Data is from May 1957 to January 2020. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

Finding the Optimal Blend

Up to this point, we have only considered the fixed allocations to each of the active and passive strategies outlined at the beginning. But these may not be the optimal holdings.

Using a block-bootstrap method to simulate returns, we can utilize mean-variance optimization to determine the optimal portfolios for given volatility levels.1 This yields a resampled historical realized efficient frontier.

Source: Kenneth French Data Library, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tiingo, Stevens Futures. Calculations by Newfound Research. Data is from May 1957 to January 2020. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

Plotting the benchmark 60/40, benchmark 90/60, and the tactical 90/60 on this efficient frontier, we see that the tactical 90/60 lies very close to the frontier at about 11.5% volatility. The allocations for the frontier are shown below.

 

Source: Kenneth French Data Library, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tiingo, Stevens Futures. Calculations by Newfound Research. Data is from May 1957 to January 2020. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

As expected, the lower volatility portfolios hold more cash and the high volatility portfolios hold more equity. For the 9% volatility level, these two allocations match, leading to the full allocation to a 50/50 stock/cash blend as in the tactical 90/60.

The passive allocation to the Treasury futures peaks at about 60%, while the L/S bond factor allocations are generally between 5% and 20% with more emphasis on Value and typically equal emphasis on Carry and Momentum.

The allocations in the point along the efficient frontier that matches the tactical 90/60 portfolio’s volatility are shown below.

Source: Kenneth French Data Library, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tiingo, Stevens Futures. Calculations by Newfound Research. Data is from May 1957 to January 2020. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

In this portfolio, we see a higher allocation to passive equities, a smaller position in the tactical equity L/S, and a larger position in passive Treasury futures. However, given the resampled nature of the process, these allocations are not wildly far away from the tactical 90/60.

The differences in the allocations are borne out in the Ulcer Index risk metric, which quantifies the severity and duration of drawdowns.

Source: Kenneth French Data Library, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tiingo, Stevens Futures. Calculations by Newfound Research. Data is from May 1957 to January 2020. Returns are hypothetical and assume the reinvestment of all distributions. Returns are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, management fees, transaction fees, and taxes. You cannot invest directly in an index and unmanaged index returns do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. Past performance is not indicative of future results. 

The efficient frontier portfolio has a lower Ulcer Index than that of the tactical 90/60 even though their returns and volatility are similar. However, the Ulcer index of the tactical 90/60 is very close to that of the benchmark 60/40.

These differences are likely due to the larger allocation to the tactical equity long/short which can experience whipsaws (e.g. in October 1987), the lower allocation to passive U.S. equities, and the lower allocation to the Treasury overlay.

In an uncertain future, there can be significant risk in relying too much on the past, but having this framework can be useful for gaining a deeper understanding of which market environments benefit or hurt each component within the portfolio and how they diversify each other when held together.

Conclusion

In this research note, we explored diversification in a long/flat tactical equity strategy with a portable beta bond overlay. By decomposing the strategy into its passive holdings (50/50 stock/bond portfolio and U.S. Treasury futures) and active long/short overlays (trend equity, bond carry, bond momentum, and bond value), we found that each of the overlays has historically exhibited low correlation to the passive portfolios and low cross-correlations to each other. Combining all of these strategies using a tactical 90/60 portfolio has led to strong performance on both an absolute and risk-adjusted basis.

Using these strategy components, we constructed an efficient frontier of portfolios and also found that the “intuitive” tactical 90/60 portfolio that we have used in much of our portable beta research is close to the optimal portfolio for its volatility level. While this does not guarantee that this portfolio will be optimal over any given time period, it does provide evidence for the robustness of the multi-factor risk-managed approach.

Utilizing portable beta strategies can be an effective way for investors to pursue capital efficiency and maximize portfolio returns while simultaneously managing risk. While leverage can introduce risks of its own, relying on diversification and robust risk-management methods (e.g. trend following) can mitigate the risk of large losses.

The fear of using leverage and derivatives may be an uphill battle for investors, and there are a few operational burdens to overcome, but when used appropriately, these tools can make portfolios work harder and lead to more flexibility for allocating to additional opportunities.

If you are interested in learning how Newfound applies the concepts of tactical portable beta to its mandates, please reach out (info@thinknewfound.com).

Re-specifying the Fama French 3-Factor Model

By

On December 16, 2019

In Craftsmanship, Portfolio Construction, Risk & Style Premia, Risk Management, Value, Weekly Commentary

This post is available as a PDF download here.

Summary­

  • The Fama French three-factor model provides a powerful tool for assessing exposures to equity risk premia in investment strategies.
  • In this note, we explore alternative specifications of the value (HML) and size (SMB) factors using price-to-earnings, price-to-cash flow, and dividend yield.
  • Running factor regressions using these alternate specifications on a suite of value ETFs and Newfound’s Systematic Value strategy, lead to a wide array of results, both numerically and directionally.
  • While many investors consider the uncertainty of the parameter estimates from the regression using the three-factor model, most do not consider the uncertainty that comes from the assumption of how you construct the equity factors in the first place.
  • Understanding the additional uncertainty is crucial for manager and investors who must consider what risks they are trying to measure and control by using tools like factor regression and make sure their assumptions align with their goals.

In their 1992 paper, The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French outlined their three-factor model to explain stock returns.

While the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) only describes asset returns in relation to their exposure to the market’s excess return through the stock’s beta and identifies any return beyond that as alpha, Fama and French’s three-factor model reattributed some of that supposed alpha to exposures to a value factor (High-minus-low or HML) based on returns stratified by price-to-book ratios and a size factor (small-minus-big or SMB) based on returns stratified by market capitalization.

This gave investors a tool to judge investment strategies based on the loadings to these risk factors. A manager with a seemingly high alpha may have simply been investing in value and small-cap stocks historically.

The notion of compensated risk premia has also opened the floodgate of many additional factors from other researchers (such as momentum, quality, low beta, etc.) and even two more factors from Fama and French (investment and profitability).

A richer factor universe opens up a wide realm of possibilities for analysis and attribution. However, setting further developments aside and going back to the original three-factor model, we would be remiss if we didn’t dive a bit further into its specification.

At the highest level, we agree with treating “value” and “size” as risk factors, but there is more than one way to skin a factor.

What is “value”?

Fama and French define it using the price-to-book ratio of a stock. This seems legitimate for a broad swath of stocks, especially those that are very capital intensive – such as energy, manufacturing, and financial firms – but what about industries that have structurally lower book values and may have other potential price drivers? For example, a technology company might have significant intangible intellectual property and some utility companies might employ leverage, which decreases their book value substantially.

To determine value in these sectors, we might utilize ratios that account for sales, dividends, or earnings. But then if we analyzed these strategies using the Fama French three-factor model as it is specified, we might misjudge the loading on the value factor.

“Size” seems more straightforward. Companies with low market capitalizations are small. However, when we consider how the size factor is defined based on the value factor, there might even be some differences in SMB using different value metrics.

In this commentary, we will explore what happens when we alter the definition of value for the value factor (and hence the size factor) and see how this affects factor regressions of a sample of value ETFs along with our Systematic Value strategy.

HML Factor Definitions

In the standard version of the Fama French 3-factor model, HML is constructed as a self-financing long/short portfolio using a 2×3 sort on size and value. The investment universe is split in half based on market capitalization and in three parts (30%/40%/30%) based on valuation, in this base case, price-to-book ratio.

Using additional data from the Kenneth French Data Library and the same methodology, we will construct HML factors using sorts based on size and:

  • Price-to-earnings ratios
  • Price-to-cash flow ratios
  • Dividend yields

The common inception date for all the factors is June 1951.

The chart below shows the growth of each of the four value factor portfolios.

Source: Kenneth French Data Library. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Performance is backtested and hypothetical. Performance figures are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, manager fees, transaction costs, and taxes.  Performance assumes the reinvestment of all distributions. 

Over the entire time period – and for many shorter time horizons – the standard HML factor using price-to-book does not even have the most attractive returns. Price-to-earnings and price-to-cash flow often beat it out.

On the other hand, the HML factor formed using dividend yields doesn’t look so hot.

One of the reasons behind this is that the small, low dividend yield companies performed much better than the small companies that were ranked poorly by the other value factors. We can see this effect borne out in the SMB chart for each factor, as the SMB factor for dividend yield performed the best.

(Recall that we mentioned previously how the Fama French way of defining the size factor is dependent on which value metric we use.)

Source: Kenneth French Data Library. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Performance is backtested and hypothetical. Performance figures are gross of all fees, including, but not limited to, manager fees, transaction costs, and taxes.  Performance assumes the reinvestment of all distributions.

Looking at the statistical significance of each factor through its t-statistic, we can see that Price-to-Earnings and Price-to-Cash Flow yielded higher significance for the HML factor than Price-to-Book. And those two along with Dividend Yield all eclipsed the Price-to-Book construction of the SMB factor.

T-Statistics for HML and SMB Using Various Value Metrics

 Price-to-BookDividend YieldPrice-to-EarningsPrice-to-Cash Flow
HML2.90.03.73.4
SMB1.02.41.61.9

Assuming that we do consider all metrics to be appropriate ways to assess the value of companies, even if possibly under different circumstances, how do different variants of the Fama French three-factor model change for each scenario with regression analysis?

The Impact on Factor Regressions

Using a sample of U.S. value ETFs and our Systematic Value strategy, we plot the loadings for the different versions of HML. The regressions are carried out using the trailing three years of monthly data ending on October 2019.

Source: Tiingo, Kenneth French Data Library. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Returns represent live strategy results. Returns for the Newfound Systematic Value strategy are gross of all management fees and taxes, but net of execution fees.  Returns for ETFs included in study are gross of any management fees, but net of underlying ETF expense ratios.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

For each different specification of HML, the differences in the loading between investments is generally directionally consistent. For instance, DVP has higher loadings than FTA for all forms of HML.

However, sometimes this is not the case.

VLUE looks more attractive than VTV based on price-to-cash flow but not dividend yield. FTA is roughly equivalent to QVAL in terms of loading when price-to-book is used for HML, but it varies wildly when other metrics are used.

The tightest range for the four models for any of the investments is 0.09 (PWV) and the widest is 0.52 (QVAL). When we factor in that these estimates each have their own uncertainty, distinguishing which investment has the better value characteristic is tough. Decisions are commonly made on much smaller differences.

We see similar dispersion in the SMB loadings for the various constructions.

Source: Tiingo, Kenneth French Data Library. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Returns represent live strategy results. Returns for the Newfound Systematic Value strategy are gross of all management fees and taxes, but net of execution fees.  Returns for ETFs included in study are gross of any management fees, but net of underlying ETF expense ratios.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

Many of these values are not statistically significant from zero, so someone who has a thorough understanding of uncertainty in regression would likely not draw a strict comparison between most of these investments.

However, one implication of this is that if a metric is chosen that does ascribe significant size exposure to one of these investments, an investor may make a decision based on not wanting to bear that risk in what they desire to be a large-cap investment.

Can We Blend Our Way Out?

One way we often mitigate model specification risk is by blending a number of models together into one.

By averaging all of our HML and SMB factors, respectively, we arrive at blended factors for the three-factor model.

Source: Tiingo, Kenneth French Data Library. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Returns represent live strategy results. Returns for the Newfound Systematic Value strategy are gross of all management fees and taxes, but net of execution fees.  Returns for ETFs included in study are gross of any management fees, but net of underlying ETF expense ratios.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

All of the investments now have HML loadings in the top of their range of the individual model loadings, and many (FTA, PWV, RPV, SPVU, VTV, and the Systematic Value strategy) have loadings to the blended HML factor that exceed the loadings for all of the individual models.

The opposite is the case for the blended SMB factor: the loadings are in the low-end of the range of the individual model loadings.

Source: Tiingo, Kenneth French Data Library. Calculations by Newfound Research. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Returns represent live strategy results. Returns for the Newfound Systematic Value strategy are gross of all management fees and taxes, but net of execution fees.  Returns for ETFs included in study are gross of any management fees, but net of underlying ETF expense ratios.  Returns assume the reinvestment of all distributions.

So which is the correct method?

That’s a good question.

For some investments, it is situation-specific. If a strategy only uses price-to-earnings as its value metric, then putting it up against a three-factor model using the P/E ratio to construct the factors is appropriate for judging the efficacy of harvesting that factor.

However, if we are concerned more generally about the abstract concept of “value”, then the blended model may be the best way to go.

Conclusion

In this study, we have explored the impact of model specification for the value and size factor in the Fama French three-factor model.

We empirically tested this impact by designing a variety of HML and SMB factors based on three additional value metrics (price-to-earnings, price-to-cash flow, and dividend yield). These factors were constructed using the same rules as for the standard method using price-to-book ratios.

Each factor, with the possible exceptions of the dividend yield-based HML, has performance that could make it a legitimate specification for the three-factor model over the time that common data is available.

Running factor regressions using these alternate specifications on a suite of value ETFs and Newfound’s Systematic Value strategy, led to a wide array of results, both numerically and directionally.

While many investors consider the uncertainty of the parameter estimates from the regression using the three-factor model, most do not consider the uncertainty that comes from the assumption of how you construct the equity factors in the first place.

Understanding the additional uncertainty is crucial for decision-making. Managers and investors alike must consider what risks they are trying to measure and control by using tools like factor regression and make sure their assumptions align with their goals.

“Value” is in the eye of the beholder, and blind applications of two different value factors may lead to seeing double conclusions.

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