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VALIDATED

"Edge Audit — Are the Round-2 Factors Real or Just Beta?"

2026-08-26

OOS window 2016-01-01 onward. 'Resid Sharpe' = market-neutral residual after regressing on the equal-weight market. A factor that is pure beta has resid Sharpe ~ 0 and beta ~ 1.

A. Long-only factors (as traded) — OOS

FactorSharpeCorr w/ MomentumBetaAlpha(ann)Resid Sharpe
Momentum(126)1.331.000.97+11.18%-0.00
STRev(-5)1.170.671.13+3.00%-0.00
LowVol(-std60)1.140.570.60+3.40%-0.00
LiqTrend(rise60)1.350.871.00+5.73%-0.00

B. Long-short factors (top minus bottom decile) — OOS

If a factor is real, its long-short version should show >0 Sharpe and LOW correlation to the Momentum long-short (else it is the same factor). Long-short is generally untradeable here (shorting 500 names) but it is the cleanest existence test.

FactorLS SharpeCorr w/ Mom-LSVerdict
Momentum(126)0.101.00no factor
STRev(-5)-0.05-0.18no factor
LowVol(-std60)-1.070.19no factor
LiqTrend(rise60)-0.090.55no factor

Full OOS correlation matrix (long-only)

                  Momentum(126)  STRev(-5)  ...  LiqTrend(rise60)  Market(EW)
Momentum(126)              1.00       0.67  ...              0.87        0.77
STRev(-5)                  0.67       1.00  ...              0.83        0.87
LowVol(-std60)             0.57       0.61  ...              0.67        0.77
LiqTrend(rise60)           0.87       0.83  ...              1.00        0.92
Market(EW)                 0.77       0.87  ...              0.92        1.00

[5 rows x 5 columns]

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