Institutional Portfolio Flows and International Investments

Using a new technique, and weekly data for 25 countries from1994 to 1998, we analyze the relationship between institutionalcross-border portfolio flows, and domestic and foreign equityreturns. In emerging markets, institutional flows forecast statisticallyindistinguishable movements in country closed-end fund NAV returnsand price returns. In contrast, closed-end fund flows forecastprice returns, but not NAV returns. Furthermore, institutionalflows display trend-following (trend-reversing) behavior inresponse to symmetric (asymmetric) movements in NAV and pricereturns. The results suggest that institutional cross-borderflows are linked to fundamentals, while closed-end fund flowsare a source of price pressure in the short run.