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All hypotheses

Hypotheses

Chartist-minus-Fundamentalist Signal (Bouchaud et al. 2017, 'Black was right'): 6-Month Vol-Normalised Trend Minus 5-Year Log-Price Deviation, Long/Flat, Per-Asset on a 10-ETF Asset-Class Panel (USEQ DAILY)

This takes the one testable rule in the abstract: markets trend over months and mean-revert over several years toward a value that is within about a factor of 2 of price. For each asset the signal is S = T - k*V. T is…

Hypothesis

This takes the one testable rule in the abstract: markets trend over months and mean-revert over several years toward a value that is within about a factor of 2 of price. For each asset the signal is S = T - k*V. T is the chartist term: the EMA (span 126 sessions) of daily log returns, divided by 63-session realized vol and scaled by sqrt(126). V is the fundamentalist term: log(close / SMA(close, 1260 sessions)), the log distance from the 5-year average. A factor of 2 corresponds to |V| of about 0.69. k = 1.0 is……Show moreShow less

This takes the one testable rule in the abstract: markets trend over months and mean-revert over several years toward a value that is within about a factor of 2 of price. For each asset the signal is S = T - k*V. T is the chartist term: the EMA (span 126 sessions) of daily log returns, divided by 63-session realized vol and scaled by sqrt(126). V is the fundamentalist term: log(close / SMA(close, 1260 sessions)), the log distance from the 5-year average. A factor of 2 corresponds to |V| of about 0.69. k = 1.0 is fixed in advance and not optimised, because the paper says the reversion is weak. Each asset is traded on its own, LONG/FLAT only. Dividends are not in PnL, borrow costs are not modelled, and in the pre-study short legs on drifting equity ETFs lost money. The rule: go long when S > +0.25, go flat when S < -0.25, otherwise keep the current state. Decisions are made only every 5th session. The universe is chosen by ASSET CLASS, not by backtest result, and is capped at 10 names (L173): SPY (US equity), EFA (developed ex-US), EEM (emerging), EWJ (Japan), TLT (long Treasuries), IEF (7-10y Treasuries), GLD (gold), SLV (silver), DBC (broad commodities), USO (crude). Each leg is an INDEPENDENT long/flat position, not part of a neutral book. Each leg targets 10% annualised vol (weight = 0.10/(sqrt(252)*vol63)), capped at 1.0x its sleeve of 10% of equity, so gross exposure stays at or below 100% of equity and Reg-T 2x is not needed. The flat state is explicit: in the in-sample pre-study each asset was flat about 30-45% of sessions. A control variant with k = 0 (pure trend) must run on the same code and be scored separately, so the analyst can measure what the fundamentalist term ADDS. That increment is the paper's actual claim. HONEST PRE-STUDY (point-in-time, 3bp per side cost, 2006-2026, pooled equal-weight sleeves): k=1 long/flat Sharpe 0.32 (15 of 21 years positive); k=0 long/flat 0.33; k=2 0.21; long-short versions 0.09-0.28. On our data the value term adds nothing, and at k=2 it hurts on drifting equity indices. It helped only on DBC, EEM and XLE. This is therefore submitted as a falsification test of the paper's claim on tradable 1993-2026 ETF history, at low priority with modest pre-registered numbers. Expect it to fail the 0.5 OOS floor unless the engine's full-sample result differs from the pre-study.

Analysis

Black was right: Price is within a factor 2 of Value

Backtest and paper results are hypothetical. Trading involves risk of loss.