Scorecard

Momentum Factors

It's one thing to find undervalued stocks, but what tells you that this stock will return to intrinsic value in the near future? Companies might have relatively low earnings, cash flow or book value multiples, but often this low valuation is justified if for instance the company is getting hammered by competition and doesn't have enough economic moat to create a profitable business model.

Some of the most powerful screens like the O'Shaughnessy trending value screen avoid value traps by using a momentum factor. It looks for relatively undervalued stocks but tries to avoid value traps by only selecting the companies with the highest stock price increase over the last 6 months. If the stock price has been going up during the last months, something must be evolving in the right direction.

Our own backtests have shown that you get even better results by using momentum as a primary factor in your model, i.e. look for stocks that have gone up in the recent past but are still cheap.

We think momentum is important so we positioned it in the top left corner of our scorecard. You can see the price increase during the last 3, 6 & 12 months as well as the price range, i.e. where the stock price is now compared to its 52 week high and low.

Momentum Factors