An Investment Strategy Based on Value Line’s Dual-Rank System

Abstract

In this study, we document that the Value Line enigma originating from a timeliness single-sort portfolio no longer holds once trading costs are taken into account. In addition, we discover that safety ranks help explain cross-sectional stock returns within optimistic timeliness ranks. The information complementarity between timeliness and safety ranks makes it advisable to formulate a better investment strategy by constructing cross-ranking portfolios to yield significant abnormal returns allowing for conventional risk factors and transaction costs.