Microcap momentum portfolio

There have been several messages asking me to explain the procedure in greater clarity. I am putting together some points below for everyone’s benefit. I will also explain some steps that could be a starting point.

1. I use two look back periods of 1 year and 6 months.
2. Let us take for example, AARTIPHARM, one of the stocks in the Nifty Microcap 250 index that is used for our purposes.
3. Price change over 1 year is 455.9 / 303 = 1.504 and over 6 months it is 455.9 / 450.2 = 1.012
4. Do the same for all stocks in the index.
   4a. You could rank the stocks based on 1 year or 6 months and invest in the top 20 or 25 stocks.
   4b. You could add the ranks based on 1 year and 6 months price change and then add the ranks. Do the ranking based on the sum obtained. Then invest in the top 20 or 25. This will give a balance between 6m and 1y performance.
   4c. This could be a quick way of starting a momentum pf.
5. Check the daily change in stock prices, ie stock referred above was 455.9 on 29-Feb and 456 the previous day. Determine log(456/455.9). Calculate daily returns over previous 6 months and 1 year period.
6. Calculate standard deviation of the returns of these two periods. This will help to understand volatility.
7. Divide the 1 year return with 1 year standard deviation. This will give the momentum ratio.
8. Divide the 6 months return with 6 months standard deviation. This will give the momentum ratio.
   8a. You can rank based on momentum ratio for 1 year or 6 months and invest. In our case, AARTIPHARM gave a rank of 149 for 1 year and 153 for 6 months.
   8b. You can add the rank over 1 year and 6 months momentum ratio. Rank again based on the total obtained. Total rank for AARTIPHARM will be 302. The total rank for the best of best can be 2 (1st rank in both time periods) and the worst of worst 500 (250th rank in both time periods).
   8c. You can invest based on the total rank in the top 20 or 25 stocks.
9. I then calculate the mean and standard deviation of the population. Then work on ranking.
   People can stop at Step 8 itself and obtain necessary performance.