Three recent research papers continue to grow our understanding of how behavioural traits impact on markets. The first provides insights into Warren Buffett's success; the other two examine the markets' response to earnings information.

What influence do personal values have on our behaviour, as individuals? And how do those values interact with professional standards and ethics?

A recent paper that addresses one of the most pressing issues facing the financial community - how to construct long-term investment portfolios to best fit the needs of those saving for retirement - questions the appropriateness of many commonly used techniques.

Portfolio insurance - invented over 40 years ago - has experienced the renaissance that it very much deserves. Trend (momentum) investing dates back over 40 years, too - the success of which is traced back in this paper to over 100 years.

Two recent studies provide evidence that issues unrelated to the fundamental operation of a firm impact their market valuation.

Two recent studies shed light on retirement income planning. One proposes a framework to avoid the pitfalls of shortfall probabilities. The other finds biological age impacts spending rates.

Two new studies provide widespread evidence of mispricings/irrationalities across world equity markets. One in particular provides valuable insight into managing risk in equity investing.

Unlike other commonly used factors, very little research has been undertaken on the quality factor - which makes a newly released paper very interesting. Another new paper extends the usual momentum factor into "returns signal momentum".

Factor investing has its foundation in the empirical studies of EMH. Via ETFs, we now live in a world where the possibility of factor investing is available to almost everyone. Three recent papers are useful in exploring further.

Do professional investors do better when investing on their own behalf? What is the relationship between the remuneration of professional investors and performance? What role to gender and age play in the use of ETFs?