Director
Dr. Trainor
Director, Professor of Finance
Dr. Trainor received his Ph.D. in Finance from Virginia Tech in 1994 and has been with ETSU since 2006. He is known in the financial area for his research on Leveraged Exchange Traded Funds and has been quoted in several financial outlets including WSJ, Reuters, Forbes, CNBC, among others. In November of 2018, an ETF with the ticker SWAN was introduced by Amplify to the NYSE garnering several hundred million based on his research with two co-authors in ameliorating downside risk. Two additional funds (ISWN and QSWN) have been similarly introduced. Dr. Trainor is a Fulbright scholar and has published more than 60 papers primarily within the investments field.
Dr. Trainor has served on ARGI Financial’s Investment board which manages approximately $2 billion in assets and continues to coordinate ETSU’s Tennessee Valley Authority Investment Challenge program which has outperformed the S&P 500 in 15 of the last 18 years.
Dr. Trainor is an avid distance runner with a couple of Tennessee age group records and likes to bike (pedal and motor), rock climb, and play (make noise on) the piano. He has been married for 20+ years with one daughter.
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Latest Research
- “Zero Commissions Effect on Stock Trading,” 2023, with Gary Shelley. Empirical Economics Letters.
- “Dynamic Z-score asset allocation to size, value, and industry return shocks,” with Gary Shelly, Business and Economic Research, Dec. 2022. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366476341_Dynamic_Z-score_Asset_Allocation_to_Size_Value_and_Industry_Return_Shocks
- “The Market Will Likely Go Lower but Waiting Might Not Work,” Seeking Alpha, Oct. 14, 2022.
- https://seekingalpha.com/article/4546691-market-will-likely-go-lower-but-waiting-might-not-work?mail_subject=you-have-9-new-followers-on-seeking-alpha&utm_campaign=alert-activity&utm_content=link-10&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha&v=1665747900#comment-93589345
- “Leveraged ETF Option Barbells,” with Eliza Wampler, The Journal of Beta Investment Strategies, Fall 2022.
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.3905/jbis.2022.1.012
- “Forecasting Volatility and Market Returns Using VIX and VIX Options,” with Spencer Stanley, Journal of Investment Strategies, Sept. 2021. Vol. 10, No.3. DOI: 10.21314/JOIS.2021.013
- “How Now Brown Cow in the Era of Low Yields,” Seeking Alpha, July 2021 https://seekingalpha.com/article/4438744-how-now-brown-cow-the-era-of-ultra-low-yields
- “Razer Could be a Sharp Buy,” Seeking Alpha, March 4, 2021. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4411307-razer-sharp-buy
- “Using Barbells to Lift your Risk-Adjusted Returns,” co-authored with Dan Cupkovic, Chris Brown, and Indu Chhachhi, Journal of Investment Consulting, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 40-47, 2020. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3753732#
- “Stock Market “Prediction Models” co-authored with G. Shelley and A. Traian, “Economics Bulletin,” Vol. 40 (2), p. A133-42, 2020. https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-20-00486.html
- “Singing SWAN Amid the Covid-19 Crisis,” Seeking Alpha, May, 11, 2020. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4346356-singing-swan-amid-covidminus-19-crisis
- “A Portfolio of Leveraged ETFs with Chris Brown and Indu Chhachhi,” Financial Services Review, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 35-48, 2020. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3272486
- “Collar the Market with Innovator’s Buffer ETFs,” Seeking Alpha, Dec. 5, 2019. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4310682-collar-market-innovators-buffer-etfs
- “A Barbell Strategy for Downside Protection,” with Chris Brown and Indu Chhachhi, Advisors Perspective, Sept. 2019. https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2019/09/16/a-barbell-strategy-for-downside-protection
- “Leaping Black Swans", co-authored with Chris Brown and Indu Chhachhi, Journal of Investing, Winter, 2019, also highlighted and summarized in Practical Applications: Portfolio Management Research, Vol. 2, 2019. https://www.pm-research.com/content/iijinvest/28/1/64
- "Mutual Fund Returns and the Reversal of the Size and Value Premiums," Global Journal of Accounting and Finance, co-authored with Changyue Xu. Vol. 3, No. 1, 2019. https://www.igbr.org/wp-content/uploads/articles/GJAF_Vol_3_No_1_2019-pgs-16-25.pdf
- “A SWAN Takes Flight,” Seeking Alpha, Nov. 12, 2018. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4221413-swan-takes-flight
- "The Buy-and-Hold Market Timer," Business Quest, 2018. https://www.westga.edu/~bquest/2018/buy&hold2018.pdf
- “Portfolio Insurance with Leveraged ETFs,” co-authored with J. George. Vol. 26, No. 4, Financial Services Review, 2017, also Top 10 monthly download on SSRI. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3055199
- “Leveraged ETFs: Multiplying by the Unknown,” Invited Article for The American Association of Individual Investors Journal. July 2017. https://www.aaii.com/journal/article/leveraged-etfs-multiplying-by-the-unknown
- “These Stocks are too Big, These are too Small, These are Just Right,” Seeking Alpha, August 2017.
- “Leveraged ETFs: When Four is Not More,” Journal of Investment Consulting, 2017. V18, No. 1, pp. 31-40. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3024969
- "Are Equities Too Low or Bonds Too High?” Seeking Alpha, July 20, 2016 https://seekingalpha.com/article/3989895-are-equities-too-low-bonds-too-high
- "Residual Income Approach to Valuing the S&P 500," Seeking Alpha, May 6, 2016. https://seekingalpha.com/article/3972266-valuing-s-and-p-500-using-residual-income
- "Leveraged ETF Option Strategies," Managerial Finance, co-authored with Richard Gregory. V. 42, No. 5, 2016. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MF-12-2014-0305/full/pdf
Kevin R. Kilgore
Associate Director, Professor of Practice in the Center for the Study of Finance
Kevin has over 35 years of commercial banking experience. Prior to joining East Tennessee State University, he helped launch the first official banking office of First Citizens Bank in the East TN market, as a senior commercial banker. Prior to that he was the Regional Market Director for Wells Fargo Middle Market Banking, covering Western Virginia, Central Virginia, Southern West Virginia and East Tennessee. He has also worked as a commercial banking consultant and contractor for the FDIC and OCC, including receivership assistance, merger and acquisition due diligence and pre-closure planning. Previously, he was the Area Executive with BB&T and was a Commercial Relationship Manager with Wells Fargo (Wachovia / First Union.) Prior to that, he was as a commercial banker with Bank of America. He is proficient in various areas of complex commercial credit, interest rate risk management and working capital finance. Kevin graduated from the University of Virginia at Wise and the Sovran (Bank of America) Financial Corporation Bank Management Program. He was also a Fellow in the Humanities at Rutgers University.
Kevin has been involved with many community boards and organizations. He currently serves on the board of directors (and finance committee) of Healing Hands Health Center. He and his wife, Hattie Jane, live in Bristol, TN. Kevin enjoys freelance writing, public speaking, movies and college football.