IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20984.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fundamentally, Momentum is Fundamental Momentum

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Novy-Marx

Abstract

Momentum in firm fundamentals, i.e., earnings momentum, explains the performance of strategies based on price momentum. Earnings surprise measures subsume past performance in cross sectional regressions of returns on firm characteristics, and the time-series performance of price momentum strategies is fully explained by their covariances with earnings momentum strategies. Controlling for earnings surprises when constructing price momentum strategies significantly reduces their performance, without reducing their high volatilities. Controlling for past performance when constructing earnings momentum strategies reduces their volatilities, and eliminates the crashes strongly associated with momentum of all types, without reducing the strategies' high average returns. While past performance does not have independent power predicting the cross section of expected returns, it does predicts stock comovements, and is thus important for explain cross sectional variation in realized returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Novy-Marx, 2015. "Fundamentally, Momentum is Fundamental Momentum," NBER Working Papers 20984, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20984
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20984.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barroso, Pedro & Santa-Clara, Pedro, 2015. "Momentum has its moments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 111-120.
    2. Joel Hasbrouck, 2009. "Trading Costs and Returns for U.S. Equities: Estimating Effective Costs from Daily Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1445-1477, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mamdouh Medhat & Berardino Palazzo, 2020. "Equity Financing Risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-037, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Li, Kai, 2021. "Nonlinear effect of sentiment on momentum," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    3. Han, Yufeng & Hu, Ou & Huang, Zhaodan, 2023. "A tale of idiosyncratic volatility and illiquidity shocks: Their correlation and effects on stock returns," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Pätäri, Eero & Ahmed, Sheraz & Luukka, Pasi & Yeomans, Julian Scott, 2023. "Can monthly-return rank order reveal a hidden dimension of momentum? The post-cost evidence from the U.S. stock markets," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. G. Geoffrey Booth & Ayfer Gurun, 2015. "Earnings Smoothing, Momentum and Statistical Arbitrage: Global Evidence," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 5(2), pages 48-65, December.
    6. Beyer, Anne & Smith, Kevin C., 2021. "Learning about risk-factor exposures from earnings: Implications for asset pricing and manipulation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1).
    7. Anwer S. Ahmed & Irfan Safdar, 2018. "Dissecting stock price momentum using financial statement analysis," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(S1), pages 3-43, November.
    8. Dong, Liang & Dai, Yiqing & Haque, Tariq & Kot, Hung Wan & Yamada, Takeshi, 2022. "Coskewness and reversal of momentum returns: The US and international evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 241-264.
    9. Azevedo, Vitor, 2023. "Analysts’ underreaction and momentum strategies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. Maio, Paulo & Philip, Dennis, 2018. "Economic activity and momentum profits: Further evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 466-482.
    11. Chen, Li-Wen & Yu, Hsin-Yi & Wang, Wen-Kai, 2018. "Evolution of historical prices in momentum investing," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 120-135.
    12. Dahlquist, Magnus & Hasseltoft, Henrik, 2020. "Economic momentum and currency returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 152-167.
    13. Bond, Shaun & Wu, Wentao & Zheng, Suyan, 2023. "Seasonal patterns of earnings releases and post-earnings announcement drift," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 15-24.
    14. Christopher Kantos & Dan diBartolomeo, 2020. "How the pandemic taught us to turn smart beta into real alpha," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(7), pages 581-590, December.
    15. Chen, Zhanhui & Yang, Bowen, 2019. "In search of preference shock risks: Evidence from longevity risks and momentum profits," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 225-249.
    16. Dai, Yiqing & Haque, Tariq & Zurbruegg, Ralf, 2020. "Factor return forecasting using cashflow spreads," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 917-931.
    17. Guillaume Coqueret, 2022. "Characteristics-driven returns in equilibrium," Papers 2203.07865, arXiv.org.
    18. Jiaqi Guo & Peng Li & Youwei Li, 2022. "What Can Explain Momentum? Evidence from Decomposition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 6184-6218, August.
    19. Kim, Junyong, 2024. "Zoom in on momentum," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    20. DeMiguel, Victor & Martin-Utrera, Alberto & Nogales, Francisco J. & Uppal, Raman, 2017. "A Portfolio Perspective on the Multitude of Firm Characteristics," CEPR Discussion Papers 12417, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blanco, Ivan & De Jesus, Miguel & Remesal, Alvaro, 2023. "Overlapping momentum portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-22.
    2. Jorge M. Uribe, 2018. "“Scaling Down Downside Risk with Inter-Quantile Semivariances”," IREA Working Papers 201826, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Oct 2018.
    3. Božović, Miloš, 2024. "VIX-managed portfolios," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    4. Barroso, Pedro & Detzel, Andrew, 2021. "Do limits to arbitrage explain the benefits of volatility-managed portfolios?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 744-767.
    5. Patton, Andrew J. & Weller, Brian M., 2020. "What you see is not what you get: The costs of trading market anomalies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 515-549.
    6. Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin Sterling, 2021. "Downside risk and the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Klaus Grobys & James W. Kolari & Jere Rutanen, 2022. "Factor momentum, option-implied volatility scaling, and investor sentiment," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(2), pages 138-155, March.
    8. Maria Ludovica Drudi & Giulio Carlo Venturi, 2023. "Assessing the liquidity premium in the Italian bond market," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 795, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Andres, Christian & Cumming, Douglas & Karabiber, Timur & Schweizer, Denis, 2014. "Do markets anticipate capital structure decisions? — Feedback effects in equity liquidity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 133-156.
    10. Będowska-Sójka, Barbara, 2018. "The coherence of liquidity measures. The evidence from the emerging market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 118-123.
    11. Kobana Abukari & Isaac Otchere, 2020. "Dominance of hybrid contratum strategies over momentum and contrarian strategies: half a century of evidence," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 34(4), pages 471-505, December.
    12. Xu, Yanyan & Huang, Dengshi & Ma, Feng & Qiao, Gaoxiu, 2019. "Liquidity and realized range-based volatility forecasting: Evidence from China," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 525(C), pages 1102-1113.
    13. Andrew J. Patton & Tarun Ramadorai, 2013. "On the High-Frequency Dynamics of Hedge Fund Risk Exposures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(2), pages 597-635, April.
    14. Xingyue Pu & Stephen Roberts & Xiaowen Dong & Stefan Zohren, 2023. "Network Momentum across Asset Classes," Papers 2308.11294, arXiv.org.
    15. Nicholas Apergis & Vasilios Plakandaras & Ioannis Pragidis, 2022. "Industry momentum and reversals in stock markets," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 3093-3138, July.
    16. Ling, Aifan & Huang, Xinrui & Ling, Boya (Vivye), 2022. "Fund immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Chinese equity funds," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    17. Alexander Barinov & Shawn Saeyeul Park & Çelim Yıldızhan, 2024. "Firm complexity and post-earnings announcement drift," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 527-579, March.
    18. Agarwal, Vikas & Hanouna, Paul & Moussawi, Rabih & Stahel, Christof W., 2021. "Do ETFs increase the commonality in liquidity of underlying stocks?," CFR Working Papers 21-04, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    19. Vu, Van & Chai, Daniel & Do, Viet, 2015. "Empirical tests on the liquidity-adjusted capital asset pricing model," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 73-89.
    20. L. Lin & M. Schatz & D. Sornette, 2019. "A simple mechanism for financial bubbles: time-varying momentum horizon," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(6), pages 937-959, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20984. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.