Economy & PolicyCore researchExperimentalNew
Repeat Layoff Acceleration Short
Updated eventData needs: lowshort only
paper
1998
Source
Hallock, K. F. (1998). "Layoffs, top executive pay, and firm performance." ILR 51(4); Farber, H. S., & Hallock, K. F. (2009). Labour Economics 16(1).
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In plain terms
Companies that lay off twice within six months are in a cost-cutting spiral; the stock underperforms.
How it works
A single layoff is noisy; a 2nd layoff at the same company within 180d signals the first round didn't fix demand and management is in a cost-cutting spiral. Hallock 1998 and Farber-Hallock 2009 both document the asymmetric short-side response on repeat events.
Live results
0 times picked on its own · 1 times inside a blend (1 beat the stock) · updated 2026-07-06This strategy is a frequent ingredient in blends that combine a few strategies on one stock. It has contributed to 1 such blended picks (1 of which beat simply holding the stock). Picking it on its own is only one of the ways it shows up.
How its picks scored vs. buy & hold
Each pick is graded on a recent year it was never tuned on, against simply owning the same stock
Where its edge concentrates
Share of picks in each company-size group that beat buy & hold
How often it trades
Active vs. patient. Bars on the left mean it waits for rare setups; bars on the right mean it trades often
Return vs. buy & hold
How much each pick beat or trailed simply owning the stock over the test year (extreme microcap moves trimmed)
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Data dependencies
- Daily prices
Adjusted-close OHLCV for every US-listed ticker; primary price feed.
- Layoffs fyi events
Public layoffs.fyi layoff announcements with company-to-ticker resolution.
Expected edge
- Reported return
- 100-300 bps
- Tested over
- T+1 to T+60d
100-300 bps over 60d (modeled, sparse event family).
Example tickers where this is likely to fire
Illustrative only, the signal fires based on the live data, not a fixed list.
Related families
Explore Repeat Layoff Acceleration Short on alphactor.ai
See which tickers this family is currently firing on, with live signals and rankings.