Mission Hedging via Momentum Investing
Disclaimer: This should not be taken as investment advice.
Confidence: Likely.1
Hauke Hillebrandt explains mission hedging:2
How should a foundation whose only mission is to prevent dangerous climate change invest their endowment? Surprisingly, in order to maximize expected utility, it might use ‘mission hedging’ investment principles and invest in fossil fuel stocks. This way it has more money to give to organisations that combat climate change when more fossil fuels are burned, fossil fuel stocks go up and climate change will get particularly bad. When fewer fossil fuels are burnt and fossil fuels stocks go down - the foundation will have less money, but it does not need the money as much.
But mission hedging has a big downside: it reduces diversification, which hurts your risk-adjusted return.
The momentum premium: “stocks with low returns over the last year tend to have low returns for the next few months and stocks with high past returns tend to have high future returns.”3 Investors can take advantage of the momentum premium by buying stocks that have gone up recently. The evidence suggests that it has persistently worked in nearly every financial market in the world, and there is a reasonable expectation that it will continue to work in the future.
In addition, momentum investing might provide effective mission hedging.
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