US Sector Rotation with Five-Factor Fama-French Alphas

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the risk-adjusted performance of US sector portfolios and sector rotation strategy using the alphas from the Fama-French five factor model. We find that five factor model fits better the returns of US sector portfolios than the three factor model, but that significant alphas are still present in all the sectors at some point in time. In the full sample period, 50% of sectors generate significant five-factor alpha. We test if such alpha signifies a true sector out/under-performance by applying simple long-only and long-short sector rotation strategies. Our long-only sector rotation strategy that buys a sector with a positive five-factor alpha generates four times higher Sharpe ratio than the S&P 500 buy-and-hold. If the strategy is adjusted to switch to the risk-free asset in recessions, the Sharpe ratio achieved is ten-fold that of the buy-and-hold. The long-short strategy fares less well.

Keywords: Fama-French Five Factor Model, US Sectors, Performance, Sector Rotation

JEL Classification: G10, G11, G12