Long-Horizon Returns

Long-Horizon Returns
Author: Eugene F. Fama
Publisher:
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2017
Genre:
ISBN:

We use bootstrap simulations to examine the properties of long-horizon U.S. stock market returns. Distributions of continuously compounded returns converge toward normal distributions as we extend the horizon from one to 30 years, and distributions of dollar payoffs converge toward lognormal. We also show that, though largely irrelevant at short horizons, uncertainty about the expected return has a substantial impact on uncertainty about long-horizon payoffs.

Long Horizon Predictability

Long Horizon Predictability
Author: Jacob Boudoukh
Publisher:
Total Pages: 21
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

Long-horizon return regressions have effectively small sample sizes. Using overlapping long-horizon returns provides only marginal benefit. Adjustments for overlapping observations have greatly overstated t-statistics. The evidence from regressions at multiple horizons is often misinterpreted. As a result, there is much less statistical evidence of long-horizon return predictability than implied by existing research, casting doubt over claims about forecasts based on stock market valuations and factor timing.

Stocks, Bonds, And The Investment Horizon: Decision-making For The Long Run

Stocks, Bonds, And The Investment Horizon: Decision-making For The Long Run
Author: Haim Levy
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2022-04-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9811250162

A century ago, life expectancy was roughly 40 years, hence all income could be consumed, as for most people, there was no need to save for retirement. Today, things have drastically changed: Life expectancy exceeds 80 years in many countries, and one should expect to live and consume many years after retirement. Thus, we have many investors with various investment horizons, where the length of the investment horizon becomes a crucial factor in determining the best investment diversification.This book analyzes the effect of the investment horizon on the optimal diversification, specifically between stocks and bonds: Should a young investor and an older investor have the same portfolio? Is it recommended to savers for retirement to change the asset allocation between stocks and bonds as they grow older, as life cycle mutual funds do in practice? Is the idiom 'stocks for the long run' backed by scientific evidence? We analyze for which horizons it is recommended to employ the popular Mean-Variance rule and for which horizons employing this rule induces an economic distortion, hence a loss to the investors. It is shown that all relevant parameters for investment choice (means, variances, and correlations) change in a non-linear way with the horizon, a fact that makes the investment horizon crucial for investment choices. Similarly, the popular Sharpe, Treynor, and Jensen performance indices vary with the assumed horizon even in the case of independence over time. To analyze all the above issues, we employ the Mean-Variance rule and Stochastic Dominance rules, as well as direct expected utility calculations.

Long Horizon Predictability

Long Horizon Predictability
Author: Abraham Lioui
Publisher:
Total Pages: 43
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

We analyze the effects of asset return predictability at various horizons on an individual's portfolio strategy and welfare gains as measured by a certainty equivalent return rate, for long term investors. We use a method to account for long horizon predictability that does not make violence to the data, and two alternative OLS procedures that allow investors to capture the differential information contained in various period returns. More specifically, our second procedure exploits the information present in the term structure of "forward" equity risk premia. We show that, adopting this procedure, the investor's welfare gain may be substantial relative to that obtained from using short horizon predictability only. Consequently, investors are better off by simultaneously using information in short and long horizon returns.

Long-Horizon Regressions When the Predictor is Slowly Varying

Long-Horizon Regressions When the Predictor is Slowly Varying
Author: Hyungsik Roger Moon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2005
Genre:
ISBN:

Predictive stock return regressions have two distinctive characteristics: i) the predictor on the right-hand side is persistent and its variance is orders of magnitude smaller than the variance of returns; (ii) the left-hand side variable is a long-horizon return constructed from overlapping sums of short-horizon returns. We offer a new model for the predictor that parsimoniously captures and links its persistence and small variance. We then use two asymptotic approaches to analyze the properties of long-horizon regressions. The approaches differ in their treatment of the overlap. One of the asymptotics has previously been analyzed with other data generating processes, while the second one is novel. We find that under both asymptotics, least-squares estimators are not consistent, their t-statistics diverge, and the R is not an adequate goodness-of-fit measure. Interestingly, a re-scaled version of the t-statistic is consistent under both long-horizon approximations and is suitable for testing predictability in long-horizon regressions. A Monte Carlo analysis of the finite-sample properties of the re-scaled t-statistic reveals that both approximations are accurate even for small sample sizes. We apply these results to test for predictability in returns of real estate investment trusts (REITs) which have come into existence only since the early 1970s and for which a reliable predictability test is crucial given the small dataset.

Strategic Asset Allocation

Strategic Asset Allocation
Author: John Y. Campbell
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2002-01-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019160691X

Academic finance has had a remarkable impact on many financial services. Yet long-term investors have received curiously little guidance from academic financial economists. Mean-variance analysis, developed almost fifty years ago, has provided a basic paradigm for portfolio choice. This approach usefully emphasizes the ability of diversification to reduce risk, but it ignores several critically important factors. Most notably, the analysis is static; it assumes that investors care only about risks to wealth one period ahead. However, many investors—-both individuals and institutions such as charitable foundations or universities—-seek to finance a stream of consumption over a long lifetime. In addition, mean-variance analysis treats financial wealth in isolation from income. Long-term investors typically receive a stream of income and use it, along with financial wealth, to support their consumption. At the theoretical level, it is well understood that the solution to a long-term portfolio choice problem can be very different from the solution to a short-term problem. Long-term investors care about intertemporal shocks to investment opportunities and labor income as well as shocks to wealth itself, and they may use financial assets to hedge their intertemporal risks. This should be important in practice because there is a great deal of empirical evidence that investment opportunities—-both interest rates and risk premia on bonds and stocks—-vary through time. Yet this insight has had little influence on investment practice because it is hard to solve for optimal portfolios in intertemporal models. This book seeks to develop the intertemporal approach into an empirical paradigm that can compete with the standard mean-variance analysis. The book shows that long-term inflation-indexed bonds are the riskless asset for long-term investors, it explains the conditions under which stocks are safer assets for long-term than for short-term investors, and it shows how labor income influences portfolio choice. These results shed new light on the rules of thumb used by financial planners. The book explains recent advances in both analytical and numerical methods, and shows how they can be used to understand the portfolio choice problems of long-term investors.

Financial Markets and the Real Economy

Financial Markets and the Real Economy
Author: John H. Cochrane
Publisher: Now Publishers Inc
Total Pages: 117
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1933019158

Financial Markets and the Real Economy reviews the current academic literature on the macroeconomics of finance.