As the recent slow turnover on Hong Kong's stock market testifies, it is hard to find a reason to buy or sell stocks these days.
Interest-rate sensitives have run too far, technology stocks are not quite safe yet and the only sure bet is uncertainty.
Leave it to the quantitative analysts to find a different angle. HSBC's James Spence has come up with a trading idea based on agreement in analysts' forecasts.
'Our studies show that stocks with a wide dispersion in analysts' forecasts perform better in periods of economic expansion, and perform worse in downturns,' Mr Spence said.
Dispersion measures the agreement factor in analysts forecasts. If a stock's forecasts are close, or 'tight', they tend to perform worst during the good times. If there is less agreement - 'wide dispersion' - they tend to perform worst in downturns.
'For the period from January 1994 to the present day, we observe an excess return of 11.3 per cent on stocks with a wide dispersion in analysts' forecasts during economic upturns and a negative return of 3.25 per cent during downturns,' Mr Spence said.
