Alpha Architect

Trend following is one of the oldest and most persistent anomalies in finance. The evidence that recent winners continue to outperform recent losers has been documented across virtually every liquid asset class, stretching back at least two centuries. It stands in direct opposition to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, yet it has survived out-of-sample testing, multiple market ...

Social Security is often discussed as a future solvency problem. The debate usually focuses on the year the trust fund will be depleted and on the benefit cuts that would follow under current law. But the paper under discussion argues that this framing misses an important point. Social Security is already affecting the federal budget. Since 2010, the program has run persisten...

Co-authored by Wes Gray, PhD (Alpha Architect) and Robert Elwood (Practus, LLP).

On July 21, 2026, at the Wall Street Tax Association (WSTA) tax-geek meeting, Treasury announced that it may put certain types of Section 351 transfers to ETFs on a list of transaction...

The US dollar’s influence on emerging markets extends well beyond banks, bond markets, and international trade. It can also reach firms that neither borrow in dollars nor export, simply because they depend on suppliers that do. The mechanism is trade credit. Large firms often borrow cheaply in foreign currency and then finance domestic customers through accounts receivable. T...

One of the most enduring puzzles in finance is the apparent disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street—markets sometimes soar while the underlying economy stumbles, and vice versa. Paul Samuelson famously quipped that “the stock market has predicted nine out of the last five recessions” — capturing the frustration economists and investors have long felt trying to extract ...