Investing in mutual funds: the determinants of implied and actual net cash flows

Estimating the fund investors’ demand plays an important role in the mutual fund management. In this line, mutual fund demand can be measured as the total net cash flows experienced by the fund during a period. Due to a lack of the data for inflows and outflows in some countries and databases, many authors estimate the net cash flows using fund size and return information. This rough measure, although being a good approximation, implicitly assumes an error in its calculation. For a sample of 2985 US open-end funds, we find evidence that estimating this implied fund flows, the error generated is higher for smaller funds, funds with higher returns, and for those experiencing higher levels of inflows or outflows. This lack of precision leads to a distortion in the estimation of the effect of some determinants on the mutual fund demand, especially when longer periods are considered when constructing the net cash flows.     

Does High Stock Price Synchronicity Always Hurt Mutual Fund Industry? Sentiment Matters

Investors have agreed that high synchronicity of stock returns adversely influences professional funds' profitability. However, different market conditions where high synchronicity exists may have different effects on this relationship. This study incorporates aggregate investor sentiment as a market condition in the equation to explore whether and when the negative association between synchronicity and fund performance holds. The authors use a sample of actively managed U.S. equity mutual funds from 2000 to 2014 and employ a portfolio of 11 passively managed funds as the benchmark to measure fund performance and fund management skill. They find empirical evidence that synchronicity negatively impacts mutual funds' profitability when the investor sentiment is low. This negative relationship disappears in high-sentiment periods. They also find that in both low- and high-sentiment states, fund managers with superior stock selection skill make more profits from high synchronicity than the average.     

The Role of Market Sentiment in Asset Allocations and Stock Returns

Abstract

The authors investigate the role of mutual fund flows in incorporating market sentiment into asset prices. They show that retail investors adjust their investments among mutual fund categories in response to changes in market sentiment. Consistent with sentiment-induced price pressure through fund flows, they further find that firms favored by mutual funds, such as large-cap, dividend payers, and firms with high institutional ownership are sensitive to market sentiment. The authors construct a pricing factor representing sentiment risk and find that the sentiment factor is significant in standard asset pricing models and robust to various sorting procedure.     

我国开放式基金股票配置策略与基金业绩间关系的实证研究

利用2005—2012年我国58只偏股型开放式基金的半年度数据,通过排序研究和建立平衡面板数据模型,对基金持股集中度和股票资产换手率与基金业绩的关系进行实证研究。结果表明,用赫芬达尔指数刻画的持股集中度与用基金累计单位净值增加值刻画的基金业绩显著正相关,股票资产换手率也与基金累计单位净值增加值显著正相关。提出:基金投资者可通过选择持股集中度和股票资产换手率高的基金来获得理想的投资收益。     

Irrational Mutual Fund Managers: Explaining Differences in Their Behavior

Documenting the disposition effect for a large sample of mutual fund managers in the United States, we find that stock-level characteristics explain the cross-sectional variation of the effect. The disposition effect, which is the tendency to sell winner stocks too early and hold on to loser stocks for too long, is more pronounced for fund managers who invest in stocks that are more difficult to value. Using different measures of stock and market uncertainty, we show that mutual fund managers display a stronger disposition-driven behavior when stocks are more difficult to value. We also find that the level of the disposition effect is monotonically increasing with the level of systematic risk (i.e., beta). In addition, we document that the trading behavior of mutual fund managers is partly driven by attention-grabbing stocks (dividend-paying stocks). Overall, our results suggest that stock-level uncertainty and trading of attention-grabbing stocks amplify the disposition effect and that differences in the effect can be explained by mutual fund managers' investment styles. Given that mutual funds hold a large fraction of the U.S. equity market, our findings add to the ongoing discussion whether professional investors can create stock mispricings and shed new light on market efficiency.     

Ranking mutual fund families: minimum expenses and maximum loads as markers for moral turpitude

We evaluate the performance of 51 mutual fund families based on a study of their diversified US managed mutual funds over an 11-year-period and explore the determinants of performance gross of published expenses. We find that mutual fund families which charge loads, high expenses to their most favored investors and have high turnover tend to perform badly, even gross of these fees. However, gross of published expenses, managed mutual fund portfolios of those families without loads, with low expenses in their least expensive class, and with low average turnover beat the corresponding indexes.

The effects of portfolio size on international equity home bias puzzle

This paper investigates a new explanation for the international equity home bias puzzle based on an endogenous asymmetric information model. Using a cross-sectional mutual fund data set, it is found that the degrees of home bias across fund managers are negatively correlated to the asset sizes under their management. This result is consistent with the theoretical prediction in the endogenous asymmetric information model—the portfolio managers with the larger assets tend to acquire more information regarding foreign equity and, hence, hold more foreign equity holdings.     

中国私募基金运作机制研究

私募基金是相对于公募的共同基金而言的一种基金类型，这种基金属于一种合伙人制的小型私人投资公司，主要投资于公开交易的证券和衍生金融产品，是一种高风线的投机基金。随着证券市场改革的深入，私募基金面临的环境发生了重大变换，本文从研究美国私募基金运作机制入手，探讨适合中国私募基金运作的机制，以规范和发展我国的私募基金。     

我国证券投资基金总体绩效的实证分析——基于总业绩评价理论

本文基于2007—2010年间数据,对我国开放式证券投资基金中的股票型基金、混合型基金和债券型基金的总体绩效进行了比较实证分析。研究发现:各股票基金的业绩表现极不均衡,基金经理的选股能力参差不齐,但选股能力或者择时能力有了明显的提高;各混合型基金的绩效分布都较为接近正态分布;我国债券型基金的业绩表现基本稳定,并没有随着股票市场的大起大落而表现出明显的好与差,其风险收益均大于与市场同风险的投资组合的风险收益,但是这种优势并不太明显。     

Stock returns and mutual fund flows in the korean financial markets: a system approach

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates dynamic and causal relations between stock returns and mutual fund flows in Korea using a system method that utilizes information from the stock, bond, and money markets. For this purpose, we employ the Dynamic Seemingly Unrelated Regression, the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Error Correction Model, and two causality tests in a system method to account for cross-equation correlations among markets that have a close relationship with one another. Furthermore, we use the information in the variance-covariance matrix of residual to improve the efficiency of the statistical estimates. The empirical evidence from the system method indicates that fund flows do not respond to eliminate deviations from long-run equilibrium, and stock prices cause net fund flows in the Korean market, implying that investors move their money to the securities that yield higher returns to rebalance their investment portfolios in the short-run. Thus, our findings do not support the popular notion of mutual fund flows as the driving force behind rallies in the Korean financial markets.     

指数型基金跟踪误差的实证分析

指数型基金是指采用指数化方式构建投资组合的基金,它与标的指数的选择密切相关.指数基金的构建有三大要素:标的指数、样本证券、权重分配,其目的是与标的指数之间的跟踪误差尽量小.虽然流动性、噪音、处置效应等均会影响指数基金的跟踪误差,但是,在一个较高有效性的市场中,指数型基金与标的指数间的跟踪误差要比新兴市场的小,这主要是因为该市场的流动性较好,成份股的选择有较大的余地.而在中国这样一个"新兴 转轨"市场中,指数基金往往会因为标的指数成份股数量不同而产生很大的差异,标的指数成份股越多,相对应指数基金的跟踪误差就越大;复制型基金完全复制策略下的跟踪误差要比增强型指数基金非完全复制策略下的跟踪误差要小;大额申购与赎回对指数基金跟踪误差产生明显影响.因此,指数型基金投资组合的构建应坚持被动投资,力避主动投资.     

基于GARCH模型的证券投资基金VaR计算与实证研究

基于统计技术的度量金融市场风险值(Value at Risk,VaR)已成为测量市场风险的新标准和新方法。鉴此,如何高效、准确地进行VaR的计算将是问题所在。基于GARCH模型,讨论了对数收益率时间序列在正态、学生t和广义误差(GED)三种不同分布下的VaR计算方法,对样本基金的市场风险进行估计,并通过返回检验来检验模型的准确性。研究结果表明,基于GED分布的GARCH模型计算的VaR值最能真实地反映基金风险。     

我国开放式基金业绩持续性、经理选股和择时能力——基于2005～2009数据

2008年我国股市进入熊市,基金净值缩水达40%以上,很多基金跌破面值,由于我国开放式基金采用基金经理负责制,基金经理的选股能力和择时能力直接影响基金公司业绩,本文选取了2005~2009年数据进行实证分析,发现我国基金经理选股和择时能力仍没有显著提高,也正因为如此,造成基金公司业绩仍然不具有明显持续性。     

基于GARCH模型的VaR方法对我国开放式基金风险的分析

本文从我国开放式基金收益率序列的分布与波动性两方面建立了一个估计基金风险的VaR-GARCH模型，在正态分布和能够刻画收益率的尖峰厚尾特征的t分布GED分布三种不同的分布假设下，对基金的VaR值进行估计，并应用Kupiec失败频率检验方法对VaR模型的准确性进行了返回检验。结果显示，基于GED分布的GARCH模型计算的VaR值比基于正态分布和t分布GARCH模型计算的VaR值更真实地反映了基金的风险。     

Information acquisition and mutual funds

We study the formation of mutual funds by generalizing the standard competitive noisy rational expectations framework. In our model, informed agents set up mutual funds as a means of selling their private information to uninformed agents. We study the case of imperfect competition among fund managers, where uninformed agents invest simultaneously in multiple mutual funds. The size of the assets under management in the mutual fund industry is determined by endogenizing the agents' information acquisition decisions. Our model yields novel predictions on the informativeness of price, the optimal fees of mutual funds, and the equilibrium risk premium. In particular, we show that a sufficiently competitive mutual fund sector yields more informative prices and a lower equity risk premium.     

不同职业路径下基金经理变更对基金业绩的影响

本文对2003—2013年基金经理更换事件采用事件分析和面板数据回归进行研究。研究发现基金经理更换后基金业绩得到显著提升,此结论在牛市更显著。当基金历史业绩较好时更换基金经理对业绩没有影响;而当历史业绩较差时更换基金经理则会显著提升业绩。从职业发展路径来看,基金管理经验能有效提升基金经理的投资能力;之前具备资管经验的继任基金经理能够显著提高业绩;并且管理经验来自同一基金公司的继任基金经理更能改善业绩。     

对我国开放式基金风险的实证研究——基于GARCH模型的VaR方法

从我国开放式基金收益率序列的分布、波动性和杠杆效应三方面考虑,在正态分布、t分布和GED分布的假设下,-建立了估计基金风险的VaR—GARCH、VaR—EGARCH模型,选择合适的模型对各只基金及不同类型基金的VaR值进行估计,并应用Kupiec方法对VaR模型的准确性进行了返回检验。结果显示,基于GED分布的GARCH模型计算的VaR值比基于t分布的GARCH模型计算的VaR值更真实地反映了基金的风险,不同投资类型和投资风格的基金的风险也不尽相同。     

行为金融视角下中国证券市场投资策略研究

本文根据我国证券投资基金发展的实际情况,运用代理关系下的有限套利模型和行为资产组合理论,建立面板数据模型,对影响我国基金投资收益的因素进行了实证研究。得出以下结论:代理关系和心理账户对证券投资基金的收益影响显著;对于基金的代理人——基金经理而言,建立有效的基金经理人信用评级制度有利于培养优秀的机构投资者,同时可促进我国证券市场的健康发展。     

开放式基金规模与公司业绩关系的实证研究

国内外学者对基金规模与其费用、流动性和业绩之间关系的研究较少.基于前人研究成果,笔者以我国2004年～2006年间的偏股型开放式基金为研究样本,实证检验了基金规模与其费用、流动性和业绩之间的关系.结果表明,开放式基金规模的增加在引发基金费用规模经济的同时,也会因降低基金流动性而损害基金业绩;基金规模和基金业绩之间存在着倒U型的非线性关系.     

Smart fund managers? Stupid money?

Abstract .  We develop a model of mutual fund manager investment decisions near the end of quarters. We show that when investors reward better performing funds with higher cash flows, near quarter-ends a mutual fund manager has an incentive to distort new investment toward stocks in which his fund holds a large existing position. The short-term price impact of these trades increase the fund's reported returns. Higher returns are rewarded by greater subsequent fund inflows which, in turn, allow for more investment distortion the next quarter. Because the price impact of trades is short term, each subsequent quarter begins with a larger return deficit. Eventually, the deficit cannot be overcome. Thus, our model leads to the empirically observed short-run persistence and long-run reversal in fund performance. In doing so, our model provides a consistent explanation of many other seemingly contradictory empirical features of mutual fund performance.