Tag: momentum

Are Stop-Losses Worth It?

StockViz introduced Themes back in August 2013. We went live with two strategies: Momentum, rebalanced once a month, and Quality to Price, rebalanced once a quarter. The Modi bull market was just getting started and returns were spectacular in the beginning. Here is Momentum, from Jan-2014 through Dec-2015:
Momentum Jan-2014 through Dec-2015

And then, in Jan-2016, the Chinese market crash rippled through world financial markets (WaPo). Momentum collapsed. This is the previous chart extended to June-2016:
Momentum Jan-2014 through June-2016

Momentum investors clamored for a safety net. Enter stop-losses. We created a new set of Themes, called Momos, that had a 5% trailing stop loss at the position level. Positions hitting the stop loss were substituted with stocks that had favorable momentum and trend. The logic was that if the entire market crashed, the strategy would be in cash until stocks gained momentum. We introduced these Themes in June and they worked as advertised on the subsequent market correction in November that year. Idea validated? Here is a chart comparing the returns of Momentum (vanilla) vs. Momo (Relative) v1.1:
Momentum (vanilla) vs. Momo

Momo trails its plain-vanilla counterpart over a ~3 year period. There has been plenty of volatility during that time – November 2016, August 2017 and January 2018 through now. And Momo traded a lot more than its plain-vanilla counterpart (the turnover charts are on the Theme pages linked above) through these bouts of volatility. And what was saved through stop-losses was paid for in taxes and transaction costs. Here is a chart that shows the Momo strategy with and without transaction costs:

So, are stop-losses worth it? Probably not. It is very difficult to de-risk a high-risk strategy intrinsically. It is better for investors to focus on asset allocation to bring down overall portfolio volatility to a level that they can bear. Think of it like trying to tame a tiger. You may very well succeed. But a tame tiger is a cat.

Momentum vs. Low Volatility

Is the low-volatility anomaly overrated?

momentum vs. min-volatility

momentum vs. min-volatility

Investors may be giving up on the significantly higher returns of a momentum strategy in favor of slightly lower drawdowns of a low-volatility strategy. They maybe better off managing overall portfolio risk through a bond allocation rather than tilting away from momentum.

Dual Momentum: NIFTY vs MIDCAP

In Global Equities Momentum, we looked at how toggling between US Equity Momentum and World ex-US Equity Momentum ETFs gave superior returns to buy-and-hold. Can the same framework be applied to toggle between NIFTY 50, MIDCAP 100 and bonds?

Relative Performance

For dual momentum to work, you need the excess returns of the two equity assets to be un-correlated (or very loosely correlated.) Here is the plot of rolling 200-day cumulative returns of the equity indices minus that of the 0-5 year bond total return index:

excess returns of NIFTY and MIDCAP
The line marked RELATIVE is the difference between MIDCAP 100 returns and NIFTY 50 returns.

What we see here is that there is a high degree of correlation between the two when it comes to excess returns over bonds. At the same time, however, the relative performance between the two equity indices tends to be sticky. So, a dual momentum model tuned to sniff out the “regime” should be able to give returns better than buy-and-hold.

For reference, here is how buy-and-hold performed:
buy-and-hold NIFTY/MIDCAP/bonds

Backtest

Over different look-back periods, here is how the dual-momentum strategy worked:
NIFTY/MIDCAP dual momentum over different look-back periods

Over 3- and 4- month look-backs, the model does seem to show higher returns and lower drawdowns than buy-and-hold. But this is probably going to over-fit past data. But what happens if we specify the model to use “any” of the lookbacks? i.e., stay in equities if any of the look-backs signals the NIFTY 50 has out-performed bonds over the same period?

NIFTY 50/MIDCAP 100 dual momentum over any lookback

Here are its worst drawdowns:
drawdowns of NIFTY 50/MIDCAP 100 dual momentum over any lookback

A model setup this way has lower drawdowns and returns that better than NIFTY 50 but lower than that of MIDCAP 100 buy-and-hold. It really just boils down to how much pain you can bear – for those with a lot of testicular fortitude, buy-and-hold MIDCAPs are the best. But for the rest of us mere mortals, this strategy makes sense. And unlike an SMA model that checks for potential trades every day, this one checks only once a month. This keeps transaction costs low for long-term investors.

Code and more charts are on github.

Global Equities Momentum Trades and Portfolio

We described a simple dual momentum strategy last month that toggles between equity and bond ETFs. In order to make it easier for you to follow the strategy, we have setup a Slack channel that posts trades triggered by this strategy. You can also follow the performance of this strategy through two virtual portfolios: Global Equities Momentum I and Global Equities Momentum II.

The GEM strategy employs a monthly rebalance schedule. So, at the maximum, expect one SELL and one BUY trade a month.

To request an invite to our Slack channel, click here. WhatsApp us if you have any questions!

US Relative Momentum – Year One

From an Indian investor’s point of view, the attractiveness of US stocks are many:

  1. There is no STT. So trading costs are orders of magnitude lower.
  2. Lower volatility overall.
  3. Rupee usually depreciates ~2.5% annually.
  4. Non-overlapping political cycles.
  5. Diversification. US is 40% of overall world market cap while India is less than 3%.

Most investors looking to invest in the US would be better off buying and holding the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) or its momentum equivalent (MTUM.) However, for those who are looking for a more active portfolio, we ported our relative momentum strategy to the US markets last year.

Dynamic Momentum

Our dynamic relative momentum strategy applies a trailing stop-loss of 5% on each constituent, everyday, and kicks out stocks that have sunk below it. Replacements are chosen based on their relative momentum scores.

While the strategy is still recovering from the 18% drawdown that occurred in September 2018, it has beaten MTUM and SPY handily over the entire period. The stats are updated every day here. Please bookmark!

Static Momentum

Our static relative momentum strategy follows a once-a-month rebalance schedule. Unless any of the constituent stocks undergoes a delisting/merger etc., the algorithm is run at the beginning of the month and the portfolio is held for the entire month.

The strategy is still recovering from the 30% drawdown that occurred in June 2018 but it has out-performed both MTUM and SPY handily in the last 20- and 50-days. The stats are updated every day here. Please bookmark!

Static vs. Dynamic

The dynamic strategy suffers from higher transaction costs but is likely to experience shallower drawdowns and be more responsive to market trends. Unlike in India, the US doesn’t have STT. So if you pay a flat brokerage (rates from Interactive Brokers can be as low as $1 per trade) then dynamic is the way to go. Here is the static vs. dynamic experience in Indian markets:

There is a ~15% return differential, July’16 through Feb’19, between the two versions.

Suitability

Here is how investors should weigh the alternatives, in order from simple to complex, cheap to expensive:

  1. Buy and hold SPY.
  2. Buy and hold MTUM. Given the high degree of correlation between SPY and MTUM, this makes sense if investors can manage the additional volatility through allocation.
  3. GEM – Global Equities Momentum outlined here.
  4. Static Relative Momentum. Over a longer time-frame, it should perform in-line with its dynamic counterpart after transaction costs.
  5. Dynamic Relative Momentum. For investors who enjoy a low cost of trading.

We are happy to further explore these options with you. Drop us a note!

Related: US vs. Indian Midcaps