Does momentum investing work with futures?
In this Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) paper1, the authors investigated time-series momentum in 47 futures contracts in equity, bond, currency, and commodity markets over the period 1975-2013. They found significant excess returns of 0.79 percent per month for a multi-asset strategy with a 12-month lookback and one-month holding period.
However, these short-term momentum strategies require high turnover, and transactions costs substantially decrease net returns for investors. Longer holding periods tend to produce somewhat lower returns, but require less trading. Further, the authors find that high-volatility periods are typically the most challenging for time-series momentum strategies. They include a cautionary note that over the last five years of their sample period (2008-2013), returns from time-series momentum strategies have only been weakly positive.
A possible explanation for this is that central bank interventions have kept trends from persisting. At Robeco we use time-series momentum signals in several allocation models and have seen that time-series momentum picked up again after 2013.
1 “Momentum in futures market”, NBIM Discussion note, January 2014.
Our researchers publish many whitepapers based on their own empirical studies; they also follow quantitative research done by others.
Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. (DIFC Branch) is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (“DFSA”) and only deals with Professional Clients and Market Counterparties, and does not deal with Retail Clients as defined by the DFSA.
Neither information nor any opinion expressed on the website constitutes a solicitation, an offer or a recommendation to buy, sell or dispose of any investment, to engage in any other transaction or to provide any investment advice or service. An investment in a Robeco product should only be made after reading the related legal documents such as management regulations, prospectuses, annual and semi-annual reports, which can be all be obtained free of charge at this website and at the Robeco offices in each country where Robeco has a presence.
Please confirm that you are a professional investor and/or institutional investor and that you have read, understood and accept the terms of use for this website.