1/ Asset Allocation Via Clustering: How Useful Is My Stylebox? Are Most Hedge Funds the Same? (Stock)
"We apply clustering algorithms to asset classes and HF strategies (1990-2020) to investigate cluster stability and compute the returns of risk parity."
2/ "What can machine learning clustering algorithms tell us about which asset classes tend to move together and which have historically stayed further apart? Which hedge fund strategies provide the best diversification in portfolios?"
3/ "We find very little benefit to traditional “style box” diversification over our rolling 3-year periods. While they could make sense to access better alpha, tactical factor exposure, or portfolio beta management, they exhibited only rare opportunities for diversification.
2/ "The implied volatility spread is the average difference of the implied volatilities of the available calls and puts with the same strike price and expiration date.
"The IV skew is the difference between the IVs of an out-of-the-money put and an at-the-money call."
3/ "The high correlations between option-implied and
indicative fees suggest that the option-implied borrowing fees can be useful proxies for the actual stock borrowing fees faced by a marginal investor."
1/ Momentum, Reversal, and Seasonality in Option Returns (Jones, Khorram, Mo)
"Option returns in individual stocks have momentum, short-term reversal, and quarterly and annual seasonality. This remains strong after controlling for other characteristics."
1/ Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Thomas Kuhn)
"A new theory is not chosen because it is true but because of a worldview change. Progress is not a simple line leading to the truth. It is progress away from less adequate conceptions of the world."
"That is the structure of scientific revolutions: normal science with a paradigm and a dedication to solving puzzles; followed by serious anomalies, which lead to a crisis; and finally resolution of the crisis by a new paradigm.
1/ Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Thaler, Sunstein)
"Small and apparently insignificant details (nudges) can impact people's behavior without forbidding any options or significantly changing economic incentives." (p. 6)
2/ "To count as a nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates. Putting the fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not.
"The power of these small details comes from focusing people's attention in a particular direction.
3/ " “If a man sees a fly, he aims at it.” Kieboom, an economist, directs Schiphol’s building expansion. His staff conducted trials and found that etching images of house flies in urinals reduces urine spillage by 80%." (p. 4)