Academic round-up: From trend-following to Gen Z philanthropy

Discover the most insightful academic content for investors

This edition of the Savvy Investor academic round-up presents papers covering a range of topics to aid in your asset allocation decisions. Themes include the impact of U.S. tariffs, insider trading alpha, trend-following, and long-term allocations to real estate.

On the Anatomy of Trend (ATP)

Time-series momentum, or trend-following, has been a cornerstone of systematic trading for decades.

How Concentrated Is the S&P 500, Really?

Over the last decade, U.S. equity benchmarks have become increasingly dominated by a small cluster of mega-cap technology and technology-adjacent firms.

The Incidence of Tariffs: Rates and Reality (Becker Friedman Institute)

In 2025, statutory tariff rates on U.S. imports rose to levels not seen in over one hundred years.

The Death of Insider Trading Alpha: Most Returns Occur Before Public Disclosure

Insider trading strategies are widely believed to generate abnormal returns, yet practitioner backtests often report performance far exceeding what is documented.

CAPM with Probability Weighting and Skewed Assets (The RFS)

The authors of this paper propose a new asset pricing model. Discover their findings and why they are suggesting this new model.

The Skills Mismatch Economy (Wharton)

The labor market is reorganizing faster than employers, workers, and educators can keep up with. Job titles no longer describe how work gets done.

LLM-Guided Smart Clustering for Optimal Allocation (Lahore University)

The authors of this paper provide a novel portfolio optimization strategy leveraging no-regret learning combined with LLM-driven smart clustering and hedging.

The Next Generation of Philanthropy (Indiana University)

What are the social, cultural, religious, and political causes that Gen Z individuals hold as important?

Not So Smart Alphas (Kedge Capital Fund Management)

For decades, the financial industry has grappled with the active versus passive investing debate, a discussion that continues to shape investment strategies.

Considering Regimes in Long-term Asset Allocation to RE (Bocconi University)

The authors of this paper investigate the strategic wealth allocation problem of a long-term investment horizon investor under a non-linear regime-switching framework.

New Findings on the Inversion of the 10Y-3M Bond Yield Curve

The link between yield curve inversions and economic recessions is one of the most established findings in macro finance.