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Buy and Hold in the New Age of Stock Market Volatility: A Story about ETFs

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  • Rohnn Sanderson

    (School of Business, Brescia University, Owensboro, KY 42301, USA)

  • Nancy L. Lumpkin-Sowers

    (Economics and Business Department, Berea College, Berea, KY 40404, USA)

Abstract

The buy and hold stock market strategy, which gained tremendous popularity in the 1970s, may no longer be such a profitable method for accumulating wealth for the average investor in the new millennium. This paper investigates the relationship between compound return and holding period length to see how long an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) investment must be held before a positive return on principal is 100% likely. Because the ETF is a relatively new investment vehicle that could be considered particularly well-suited to the requirements of the buy and hold strategy, we begin our investigation here. We find that the compound returns earned over a rolling holding period are much more volatile than one might assume given historic rules of thumb for average return expectations. Using monthly return data for all listed NASDAQ ETFs between their date of inception and 2015, we find it takes ten years for the average probability of a gain on principal to be over 95 percent.

Suggested Citation

  • Rohnn Sanderson & Nancy L. Lumpkin-Sowers, 2018. "Buy and Hold in the New Age of Stock Market Volatility: A Story about ETFs," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-14, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:6:y:2018:i:3:p:79-:d:168057
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    2. Jack C De Jong & S Ghon Rhee, 2008. "Abnormal returns with momentum/contrarian strategies using exchange-traded funds," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(4), pages 289-299, October.
    3. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Working Papers 111, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    4. repec:pri:cepsud:91malkiel is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    6. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 59-82, Winter.
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    Cited by:

    1. Yutaka Kurihara & Shinichiro Maeda & Akio Fukushima, 2021. "Have the Purchases of ETF Raised Stock Prices? Recent Japanese Case," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 109-119.
    2. Tai Vo-Van & Ha Che-Ngoc & Nghiep Le-Dai & Thao Nguyen-Trang, 2022. "A New Strategy for Short-Term Stock Investment Using Bayesian Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 887-911, February.

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