Taming Momentum Crashes: A Simple Stop-Loss Strategy

52 Pages Posted: 12 Mar 2014 Last revised: 25 Sep 2016

See all articles by Yufeng Han

Yufeng Han

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte - Finance

Guofu Zhou

Washington University in St. Louis - John M. Olin Business School

Yingzi Zhu

Tsinghua University - School of Economics & Management

Date Written: September 24, 2016

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a stop-loss strategy to limit the downside risk of the well-known momentum strategy. At a stop-level of 10%, we find, with data from January 1926 to December 2013, that the maximum monthly losses of the equal- and value-weighted momentum strategies go down from -49.79% to -11.36% and from -64.97% to -23.28%, while the Sharpe ratios are more than doubled at the same time. We also provide a general equilibrium model of stop-loss traders and non-stop traders and show that the market price differs from the price in the case of no stop-loss traders by a barrier option.

Keywords: Momentum, crashes, downside risk, stop-loss orders

JEL Classification: G11, G14

Suggested Citation

Han, Yufeng and Zhou, Guofu and Zhu, Yingzi, Taming Momentum Crashes: A Simple Stop-Loss Strategy (September 24, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2407199 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2407199

Yufeng Han

University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte - Finance ( email )

9201 University City Boulevard
Charlotte, NC 28223
United States

Guofu Zhou (Contact Author)

Washington University in St. Louis - John M. Olin Business School ( email )

Washington University
Campus Box 1133
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
United States
314-935-6384 (Phone)
314-658-6359 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/faculty/zhou/

Yingzi Zhu

Tsinghua University - School of Economics & Management ( email )

Beijing, 100084
China
+86-10-62786041 (Phone)

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