Abstract
This paper explores the benefits of extending the investment universe to commodity futures, from the perspective of momentum traders. We find that the growth-optimal portfolio includes negative (positive) weights on commodity futures losers (stock winners). Motivated by this finding, we construct a joint momentum strategy, buying stock winners and selling commodity futures losers, and show that it generates an average monthly return of up to 1.91% and provides much lower skewness (0.04) and kurtosis (1.27) than a traditional stock momentum strategy. It also greatly improves profitability, especially in unfavorable market states, and thus effectively manages tail risk.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1489-1514 |
Number of pages | 26 |
Journal | Journal of Futures Markets |
Volume | 39 |
Issue number | 12 |
Early online date | 29 Aug 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 31 Dec 2019 |
Keywords
- momentum
- commodity futures
- market anomalies
- momentum crashes
- tail risk