Momentum investing: evidence from the US tourism and hospitality

PurposeThe present research aims to examine a range of momentum trading strategies for the tourism and hospitality sector.Design/methodology/approachThe paper followed the methodology of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993) to construct the portfolios. In this methodology, all portfolios were formed and evaluated by their cumulative stock returns over the past J periods and holding the position for the next K periods. In total, nine formation and holding periods were used, represented by 3, 6 and 12. For example, strategy 3–3 (that is, strategy with J = 3 and K = 3) refers to the strategy that stocks are ranked based on their previous three months and then held for the next three months.FindingsThe findings demonstrated that none of these momentum investing strategies was profitable. Most of the results, however, show positive, but insignificant momentum returns. This finding can be interpreted as price reversal over a horizon of three to twelve months in the US hospitality and tourism sector. These results are robust to size, different formation and holding combinations, beta and turnover.Research limitations/implicationsRegarding the research limitations, this paper only considers the US tourism and hospitality sector. Therefore, the extension of results to other developed and developing markets should be taken carefully. Also, this paper relies only on the methodology of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993). Other methodologies could be suitable avenues for future research.Practical implicationsInvestors and portfolio managers who seek for earning abnormal returns by investing in the US HT stocks can attain their hopes by constructing portfolios based on existing guidelines in the literature and adopting a short-term reversal trading strategy or by buying past losers and selling past winners of the US tourism and hospitality stocks.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the hospitality finance literature by offering the investors who are interested in the US hospitality and tourism sector an uncomplicated trading rule that uses real return data and is expected to generate actual returns. Moreover, the momentum strategy of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993) is never used in the hospitality finance literature.

Mapping the scientific research on alternative momentum investing: a bibliometric analysis

PurposeThis study aims to recognize the current dynamics, prolific contributors and salient trends and propose future research directions in the area of alternative momentum investing.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a blend of electronic database and forward reference searching to ensure the incorporation of all the significant studies. With the help of the Scopus database, the present study retrieves 122 research papers published from 1999 to 2020.FindingsThe results reveal that alternative momentum investing is an emerging area in the field of momentum investing. However, this area has witnessed an exponential growth in last ten years. The study also finds that North American, West European and East Asian countries dominate in total research publications. Through network citation analysis, the study identifies five major clusters: industrial momentum, earnings momentum, 52-week high momentum, time-series momentum and risk-managed momentum.Research limitations/implicationsThe present review will serve as a guide for financial researchers who intend to work on alternative momentum approaches. The study proposes several unexplored research themes in alternative momentum investing on which future studies can focus.Originality/valueThe study embellishes the existing literature on momentum investing by contributing the first bibliometric review on alternative momentum approaches.

Momentum Investing Across Different Asset Classes

Instead of traditionally looking at investing in different types of asset classes in order to exploit diversification effects, investors are turning to the underlying performance drivers built-in in many asset classes – factors. The intuition is that assets earn risk premiums because they are exposed to underlying risk factors. Factor models were developed as a simplification and continuation of diversification principle and mean-variance efficiency introduced by Harry Markowitz. This chapter will focus on one of the standard investment and cross section factors called momentum. It became very popular since 1993 when Jegadeesh and Titman documented that strategies that buying stocks that have performed well in the past and selling stocks that have performed poorly generate significant positive returns. This chapter aims to provide an introduction to factor models development and momentum effects on stock and bond markets – description of methodology and detailed literature overview.

Momentum Effect in Developed and Emerging Stock Markets

The study aims to reaffirms the existence of short-term momentum effect in 13 developed and emerging stock markets where previous literature has lack of consensus. Although many studies emphasis on the existence of momentum effect, but still, there are substantial number of researchers that deny the its presence. The contradictory finding of many researchers over the existence of momentum effect, raises a serious question, to what extend our stock markets are informationally efficient and whether investor can make abnormal profits by using momentum investment strategies. This study applies momentum investment strategy, J6K6, to calculate momentum returns. Our study finds negative significant momentum effect in all 13 stock markets. Although momentum effect is present in 13 countries but Investors are not able to attain abnormal profit through momentum investing. These findings have an utmost importance for practitioners that they should not adopt momentum investment strategies in these countries as these strategies are generating lose. Moreover, stock market regulators should formulate these markets on the notion of efficient market hypothesis.

Risk-mitigating effect of ESG on momentum portfolios

Purpose Existing empirical evidence on the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration on momentum portfolios is limited. The combination of the two is relevant given the risk-mitigating effect of ESG criteria, as well as the existence of momentum crashes. As such, ESG might lend itself to reduce crash risk for momentum investors. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors provide insight into the impact of an ESG-constrained investment universe on momentum returns. The overall investment universe is split into high and low ESG-rated segments to anylse the characteristics of momentum portfolios conditional on the ESG rating. Findings The authors document the existence of a momentum premium across European stocks and for a subset of high and lows ESG-rated stocks. However, absolute returns of momentum strategies are significantly lower if momentum strategies are pursued on a subset of high ESG stocks. Additionally, findings document a risk-mitigation effect of ESG for momentum portfolios with significantly lower returns for momentum portfolios based on low ESG stocks during periods of momentum crashes. Originality/value Research on momentum investing and the momentum premium is large and well established, yet many questions remain. A recent study by Daniel and Moskowitz (2016) has analyzed crash risk for momentum investors and identified periods of strong momentum crashes. On the other hand, the literature on ESG integration in standing investment approaches is still limited, but as demand for sustainable products is increasing, so is the demand for a better understanding of the impact of ESG integration. Consequently, the authors provide evidence on the benefits of ESG integration for momentum investors to reduce their exposure to momentum crash risk.