Central bank communications and equity ETFs

This article examines effects of monetary policy surprises on returns, volatilities, trading volumes, and bid–ask spread of two equity ETFs, the S&P 500 SPY fund and the S&P 400 MDY fund. The policy surprises are measured by both surprises in the federal funds rate target changes and surprises in the future direction of the Federal Reserve monetary policy. The results show that there is an overreaction of the SPY to the federal funds rate target surprise in the first 5 minutes' trading and that both the SPY and the MDY returns, volatilities, trading volumes, and bid–ask spread react more strongly to surprise cuts than to surprise increases in the federal funds rate target. Quantitatively, after 45 minutes, an unanticipated 25‐basis‐point cut in the federal funds rate target is associated with an increase of 1.2 and 1.6% in the SPY and the MDY, respectively, while an unanticipated 25‐basis‐point decline (or rise) in the four‐quarter‐ahead eurodollar futures rate is associated with an increase (or decrease) of 0.71 and 0.40% in the SPY and the MDY, respectively. Further evidence also suggests that the market reacts more strongly to surprises in the future direction of monetary policy during the monetary tightening period and that the impact of monetary policy surprises depends on their sizes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:959–995, 2006     

The performance of socially responsible equity mutual funds: Evidence from Sweden

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of socially responsible (SR) funds in Sweden by assessing fund managers' abilities and performances across different market states. These issues are analyzed at the aggregate and individual fund levels. The paper also presents several new statistical tests that allow more precise inferences about differences in performance and the variability in fund returns arising from different benchmarks. In general, SR and conventional funds perform similarly to the market. At the aggregate level, SR funds investing in Sweden and Europe perform similarly to conventional funds, while those investing globally tend to underperform. This underperformance seems to be linked with poor selectivity abilities of global SR fund managers. For individual funds, the performance of both types of funds is more similar. Most funds perform similarly in crisis periods compared to non‐crisis periods. Overall, our results are consistent with a mature market for SR investing and support the view that the similar performance of SR and conventional funds is associated with the mainstreaming of SR investment in Sweden. These findings encourage SR investing both by socially conscious investors, who wish to align their social values with their investment decisions, as well as by conventional investors, who will not be penalized by investing in these funds. We also call attention to the difficulties investors face when trying to identify funds with high social standards, considering that there is scarce information on the extent to which each fund (SR or conventional) holds stocks that comply with ethical and social criteria.     

Portfolio concentration and closed-end fund discounts: Evidence from the China market

This paper provides an analysis of the determinants of the closed-end fund discount in Mainland China. We focus on the diversification level of closed-end funds as the investor clienteles for closed-end funds in Mainland China are different from other markets. Our empirical evidence shows that discount is strongly and negatively related to stock concentration as measured by the number of stocks in the fund or Herfindahl index. We also find the discount decreases with the dividend payout and turnover, suggesting that investors are willing to pay a higher price (lower discount) for a fund that pays more dividends and has higher turnover.     

All about fun(ds) in emerging markets? The case of equity mutual funds

Using an expanded sample of emerging market (EM) mutual fund returns, we find that funds predominantly investing in EM equities have, on average, higher reward-to-risk ratios compared to benchmark indices. However, adjusted for risk factors EM funds outperform before costs but not after costs. Only growth and Chinese funds generate returns that more than recoup their costs. Local funds have an edge over their foreign counterparts, outperforming them by approximately 1.8% annually. Foreign funds tend to invest more cautiously in small-cap and growth-stocks. We also show that most funds in EMs pursuing a market-timing strategy have rather poor market-timing skills negatively affecting risk-adjusted performance measures.     

Managerial Sharing,Mutual Fund Connections,and Performance

In this study, we examine the effect of mutual fund connections, through managerial sharing, on performance and stock holding commonalities. Our analysis of return correlations and portfolio holdings indicates that more interconnected funds tend to buy and sell similar stocks, hence increasing the similarity of portfolio holdings and undermining the distinctiveness of their investment strategy. Our results also indicate that highly connected funds significantly underperform weakly connected funds by about 1.4% on a yearly risk‐adjusted basis. We show that fund family performance is unaffected by the intensity of fund connections, and that greater fund connections could significantly enhance family‐level profit margins.     

Do mutual fund managers exploit the Ramadan anomaly? Evidence from Turkey

Recent literature shows that the holy month of Ramadan exerts a positive influence on investor sentiment in predominantly Muslim countries. This anomaly has been found to be particularly pronounced in Turkey. We therefore examine whether mutual fund managers investing in Turkish stocks are able to benefit from the Ramadan effect. We find that risk-adjusted performance of domestic institutional funds, hybrid funds and foreign Turkish equity funds is substantially higher during Ramadan compared to the rest of the year. By contrast, domestic index funds fail to deliver higher abnormal returns as they are adversely affected by increased money inflows during Ramadan.     

Equally Weighted Portfolios of Randomly Selected Stocks and the Individual Investor

The article contrasts 500 randomly formed equally weighted portfolios (1/N) to 221 actively managed stock funds, individual stocks, and the IBrX-50 index, representing indexed stock funds, considering transaction costs. The sample are the 50 stocks in IBrX-50 index in January 2007 throughout 60 months. Investors are likely to achieve greater returns and return-to-risk ratios with a randomly formed 1/N portfolio than with a stock fund, particularly those targeting retail investors, or one of the 50 stocks also randomly drawn. These portfolios would also outperform the IBrX-50. Robustness tests with variations in size and frequency of rebalancing do not change conclusions.     

Does it Really Hurt to be Responsible?

Prior literature on socially responsible investment has contended that excluding “sin stocks” from a portfolio (negative screening) will reduce performance and increase risk. Further, incorporating stocks of firms with positive social responsibility scores (positive screening) will improve performance and reduce risk. We simulate portfolios designed to mimic typical equity mutual funds’ holdings and investigate these propositions. We remove the potentially confounding influences of differences in manager skill, transaction costs and fees, and conduct a clean experiment on the effect of positive and negative portfolio screening. We find no difference in the return or risk of screened and unscreened portfolios. We conclude that a typical socially responsible fund will neither gain nor lose from screening its portfolio.     

Pay-performance sensitivity and risk-taking behaviors: Evidence from closed-end funds

The pay-performance sensitivity (PPS) of managers of closed-end funds is explicitly specified in their contracts as the marginal rate of the funds' net asset value. Using a sample of US closed-end funds from 2006 to 2009, this paper investigates the relationship between the PPS and risk-taking behaviors of fund managers. After controlling for endogeneity, we find that fund return volatility and fund PPS positively determine each other. Furthermore, the positive relationship is more pronounced for closed-end funds engaging in alternative investments or in emerging markets.     

Determinants of Federal Reserve lending to failed banks

Many of the banks that failed in the years 1985–1990 borrowed from the Federal Reserve for extended periods in their last year. This article tests hypotheses about the determinants of borrowings by banks that failed in these years. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that borrowings were greatest among the banks with the greatest liquidity needs in their last year. They do not support the hypothesis that the Fed favored member banks in its allocation of credit to troubled banks. The results indicate significant variation in lending practices across Federal Reserve districts, and there is weaker evidence of variation in lending practices across time.The rate of bank failure in the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s was high relative to failure rates in earlier decades. Many of the failed banks borrowed from the Federal Reserve for extended periods in their last year. Of the sample of failed banks in this study, 58% borrowed at some time in their last year, and 48% borrowed in their last three months. In most cases, the Federal Reserve would have been aware of the financial problems of these banks when lending to them, based on the supervisory ratings of the condition of the banks.Congress acted in 1991 to restrict Federal Reserve lending to undercapitalized banks, in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 (FDICIA). These restrictions were based on the view that Federal Reserve lending to undercapitalized banks increased the losses of the FDIC in bank failure cases.There was a lot of variation among the borrowers in terms of the length of time they borrowed and average borrowings relative to their total deposits. This variation makes it possible to test hypotheses about the borrowings of these banks near the time of their failure. One hypothesis is that the Federal Reserve made credit available to the troubled banks with the greatest liquidity needs. Banks with liquidity needs have exhausted most of their liquid assets, must draw down reserves to pay depositors who are withdrawing funds, and cannot raise funds in the private sector. Fed lending to the troubled banks with the greatest liquidity needs would have given supervisors time to determine which banks to close and the methods for resolving the failed bank cases.¹ Another hypothesis is that variation among the banks in the patterns of their borrowings reflected preferences of the Fed to aid some banks rather than others, such as banks that were members of the Federal Reserve System. Yet another hypothesis is that the variation in patterns of borrowings reflected differences in Fed practices across districts and across time in lending to troubled banks.Tests of these hypotheses do not indicate whether the practice of Federal Reserve lending to troubled banks was good policy.² These tests, however, may shed light on the factors that motivated the Fed to lend to troubled banks.     

基于风格层面的开放式基金反馈交易行为的实证研究

文章通过结合Sharpe模型的参数构造一个基于风格层面的基金反馈交易检验模型,对我国在2004年之前成立的开放式股票型基金的反馈交易行为进行实证研究,结果发现：基金普遍采取正反馈交易策略,价值型基金比成长型基金具有明显的正反馈交易特征;在熊市时期,债券型基金的正反馈交易特征最为突出;在牛市时期,成长型基金和债券型基金则表现出明显的负反馈交易特征;历史业绩突出的基金更容易在随后时期内采取正反馈交易策略,这种策略在熊市中会恶化业绩,而在牛市中往往会提高其随后的业绩。     

关于建立证券投资基金评级机制的探讨

随着我国证券市场的发展 ,作为我国未来股票市场的一个重要组成部分和市场参与者———证券投资基金会发挥越来越举足轻重的作用 ,因此合理确立证券投资基金评级机制的意义会更深远 ,论述建立证券投资基金评级机制的必要性、有效性和可行性 ,并从微观层面探讨建立证券投资基金评级机制的具体内容和方式。     

Further Evidence on the Firm-Size Relation and Stock Market Responses to Changes in Federal Reserve Margin Levels

The virtually monotonic firm-size/price-reactions observed following changes in U.S. Federal Reserve market margin requirements over the post-1962 period provide dramatic new evidence in support of the hypothesis that changes in margin levels are associated with changes in security return behavior. Variance tests of the 1970 and 1971 margin decreases also produce evidence consistent with this hypothesis.     

Tapering talk: The impact of expectations of reduced Federal Reserve security purchases on emerging markets

In May 2013, Federal Reserve officials first began to talk of the possibility of tapering their security purchases. This “tapering talk” had a large negative impact on the exchange rate and financial markets in emerging markets. In this paper, we analyze who was hit and why. We find that countries with larger and more liquid markets and larger inflows of capital in prior years experienced more pressure on their exchange rate, foreign reserves, and equity prices. We interpret this as investors being able to rebalance their portfolios more easily when the target country has a large and liquid financial market.     

关于中国股票市场上基金重仓股的博弈分析

证券投资基金在我国股票市场中的地位越来越重要,基金重仓的股票越来越受到投资者的关注。通过建立一个二级市场中基金与个人投资者在基金重仓股上的不完全信息动态博弈模型,用于解释基金与个人投资者在股票市场上的投资和投机行为,并根据模型的分析提出促进中国股票市场长期健康、有序发展的建议。     

RUNNING FOR THE EXIT: DISTRESSED SELLING AND ENDOGENOUS CORRELATION IN FINANCIAL MARKETS

We propose a simple multiperiod model of price impact from trading in a market with multiple assets, which illustrates how feedback effects due to distressed selling and short selling lead to endogenous correlations between asset classes. We show that distressed selling by investors exiting a fund and short selling of the fund’s positions by traders may have nonnegligible impact on the realized correlations between returns of assets held by the fund. These feedback effects may lead to positive realized correlations between fundamentally uncorrelated assets, as well as an increase in correlations across all asset classes and in the fund’s volatility which is exacerbated in scenarios in which the fund undergoes large losses. By studying the diffusion limit of our discrete time model, we obtain analytical expressions for the realized covariance and show that the realized covariance may be decomposed as the sum of a fundamental covariance and a liquidity‐dependent “excess” covariance. Finally, we examine the impact of these feedback effects on the volatility of other funds. Our results provide insight into the nature of spikes in correlation associated with the failure or liquidation of large funds.     

我国开放式基金投资者流动性交易行为与基金业绩关系的实证研究

本文考察开放式基金由于投资者的申购和赎回而产生的流动性交易行为及其与基金业绩的关系,得出如下结论:(1)我国开放式基金投资者对单个基金认同程度很不一致,导致了对不同基金的申购和赎回差异悬殊;(2)投资者热衷于炒作小盘基金,使得其流动性交易远比大盘基金活跃,小盘基金更容易被少数大额持有人操纵而从中牟利;(3)我国开放式基金的业绩与其申购率成正向关系,但与赎回率没有明显的负向关系;(4)国外学者的早期研究发现,投资者倾向于购买业绩好的基金,但却不一定赎回业绩差的基金,这种业绩—流量的不对称性现象在我国基金市场同样存在。     

建立社会保障资金投资收益保障机制

社会保障是市场经济失衡的分配关系的补充,社保资金是广大民众的养老钱和活命钱.为保证社会保障投资能稳定地获得资本收入,必须建立社保资金投资利润保障机制,其目的就是要消除社保资金投资的风险因素.一般可以通过容许社保资金优先购买国债、使之优先参与银行间的资金拆借和把垄断行业开辟为社保资金的无风险投资等措施,使社保资金能够稳定地获得资本收入,最终为社保资金投资建立有效的收益保障机制.     

Inflation Targeting

There is substantial positive interest within the Federal Reserve in an explicit price level objective as a focus for evaluating Federal Reserve performance. Setting such an explicit objective would raise the question of whether price stability might acquire primacy among the mandates the Federal Reserve has received over the years.JEL Classification E31,E58     

Psychological Capital: Impacts on Asset Management

Drawing together the areas of behavioral finance and positive psychology, the present research sought to investigate whether the psychological capital of investment fund managers is associated with fund performance in a context of financial instability. The theoretical propositions were presented and evaluated empirically through primary data on investment fund manager profiles and secondary data on the cumulative stock fund returns. The results indicate that funds managed by managers with greater resilience and optimism obtained a higher return than the mean profitability in a period of market instability.