Tag: model

Bull Beta / Bear Beta for Stock Picking

The Beta of a stock or portfolio is a number describing the correlated volatility in relation to the volatility of an index. By definition, the market itself has a beta of 1.0, and individual stocks are ranked according to how much they deviate from the macro market. A stock with a beta of 2 has returns that change, on average, by twice the magnitude of the overall market’s returns; when the market’s return falls or rises by 3%, the stock’s return will fall or rise (respectively) by 6% on average.

The problem with a single measure of beta during all market conditions is that it might understand/overstate the risk of a stock during bull/bear phases. For example, FINPIPE [stockquote]FINPIPE[/stockquote] has a fairly benign beta of 0.68. So you would expect it to hold up pretty well during volatile markets, correct? However, with a bear beta of 1.17, it is going to tank more than the broader market and with a bull beta of just 0.007, it is not going to rise as much as the market either. So you get all of the downside without the upside. ASHOKLEY [stockquote]ASHOKLEY[/stockquote], on the other hand, has positive asymmetry with a bear beta of 0.90 and a bull beta of 1.16.

The bigger question is can this asymmetry be converted into a model for generating stock picks? Can investing in a portfolio of stocks with bull betas > 1.2 and a bear betas < 0.8 result in meaningful out-performance? We looked all the way back to Jan 2010 to pick out stocks that met this condition to see if a portfolio of these names can outperform the market. It seemed pretty legitimate at first, who wouldn’t want to own stocks that didn’t fall as much as the market when it went down but rose more than the market when it went up?

The results were a bit of a disappointment. First, the stock picks were extremely sparse. There were only 5 days during the entire period where there were more than 5 stocks that met the criteria. So there just weren’t enough data points to confirm or refute the thesis. It also didn’t help that these portfolio did not outperform the market in any meaningful way.

The Bull Beta / Bear Beta thesis needs to be further tested for different bull/bear thresholds. It is an interesting thesis and we are big fans of repeatable, verifiable and systematic portfolio strategies. Stay tuned for updates!

 

The StockViz Reference Portfolio – Feb/08

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A down week for our portfolio, the portfolio crashed by 4.7%.

As the NIFTY dipped by 2.33% over the week, our momentum portfolio was down 4.7% underperforming NIFTY by over 2 percent. However, we continue the process of following a systematic repeatable process, with appropriate risk management steps and hope for a better performance in the coming week.

Talk to us about our Quantitative Portfolio Strategy Execution.

 

The StockViz Reference Portfolio – Feb/01

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A flat week for our portfolio, we were down 0.2%.

As the NIFTY was down 0.88% over the week, our momentum portfolio was down only 0.2% outperforming NIFTY by over half a percentage. Continuing the process of following a systematic repeatable process, with appropriate risk management steps came in real handy.

Talk to us about our Quantitative Portfolio Strategy Execution.

The StockViz Reference Portfolio – Jan/25

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It was a poor week for our portfolio.

When the NIFTY went up +0.15% our portfolio was down 6.7%. We had a lot of real estate scrips with us over the week, and because of the sector-rotation that happened, huge number of stocks were stop-lossed.

Although,  we are still pretty confident about the portfolio and we remain focused on our approach:

  1. Systematic
  2. Repeatable
  3. Testable, and
  4. Risk-managed

Talk to us about our Quantitative Portfolio Strategy Execution.