Hi, Shrewd!        Login  
Shrewd'm.com 
A merry & shrewd investing community
Best Of MIBest OfAll BoardsThe Shrewd’m WeeklyLearn to InvestHow to Become Shrewd
Search
Shrewd'm.com Merry shrewd investors
Search
Best Of MIBest OfAll BoardsThe Shrewd’m WeeklyLearn to InvestHow to Become Shrewd


The week's question
In March 2025, in the thread "Re: OT, out", Umm asked the members: "Do you think it is because America is made up of magical soil that makes businesses based in America magically profitable?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
Answer this questionContinue to Shrewd'mThis note won't appear again
Investment Strategies / Mechanical Investing
Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (7) |
Author: TGMark ✧  😊 😞
Number: of 6243 
Subject: Re: YLDEARNYEAR thoughts
Date: 08/17/23 10:04 PM
Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!
No. of Recommendations: 4
This is an interesting subject and I've wondered about other screens, particularly momentum.
Starting in 2018 many momentum screens really started doing poorly.
They have picked up some of late, but still compared to the "tuning period", results are not good.

For whatever reason, and probably wrongly, I'm not as willing to wave that off to over-tuning as quickly as some others.
After all some of the screens are rather simple so it's hard to conclude there was excessive over-tuning.
YLDEARNYEAR would be an example of that; there's hardly anything to the screen.

Rather, it seems to me that there's just something that has changed in the macro environment that has thrown the screen out of favor.
And therefore, the screen performance could improve if the conditions became favorable again.

As a momentum screen example, consider VG-Horse per this post http://www.datahelper.com/mi/search.phtml?nofool=y...
The screen has some constraints on institutional holdings and float, and looks for growth in EPS and Sales.
It also looks for low price and high free cash flow and has a typical momentum-based final sort.

At the time of the post above, the top 10 returned 34% CAGR from 19970902 through 20150918.
Since then, 20150918 through 20230310, top 10 only returned 6% - a clear failure. Did sales and EPS growth go out of style?
From pandemic lows, it looks somewhat better, top 10 returned a more respectable 17%, still half what it had been.
Sticking with it throughout 19970902 to 20230310 gives a CAGR of 25%, still nothing to complain about.
(Screen link: gtr1.net: GTR1 Backtester - VG-Horse_V2
The incd.s in original screen had to be removed to extend backtest date through 2023).

I think momentum, at least as defined in many SiPro screens, has suffered for some years now, and the recent focus on mega-caps hasn't helped either.
Might momentum ever return?

Mark
Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!
Print the post
Members reply directly to TGMark here — and replies get answered. Reading is free; so is joining the conversation. Join Shrewd'm »
This community has written 6,227 posts about Mechanical Investing. The article-length ones it recommended most:
Dividend investing · 52 recs · 2025
Non-Mag7 screen · 34 recs · 2025
OT - Div yields and returns · 32 recs · 2024
Using AI to generate backtesting programs · 30 recs · 2025
Rankings for 19Dec2022 · 29 recs · 2022
Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (7) |


Announcements
Mechanical Investing FAQ
Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.

Best Of MI | Best Of | Favourites & Replies | All Boards | Followed Shrewds | Open Questions | Moving a community