It Pays to Set the Menu: Mutual Fund Investment Options in 401(k) Plans

This paper investigates whether mutual fund families acting as service providers in 401(k) plans display favoritism toward their own affiliated funds. Using a hand‐collected data set on the menu of investment options offered to plan participants, we show that fund deletions and additions are less sensitive to prior performance for affiliated than unaffiliated funds. We find no evidence that plan participants undo this affiliation bias through their investment choices. Finally, we find that the subsequent performance of poorly performing affiliated funds indicates that this favoritism is not information driven.     

The performance of female hedge fund managers

Using data for the period 1994–2013, we examine the return and risk-taking behavior of hedge funds having at least one female portfolio manager and funds that have all female portfolio managers. Funds with all female managers perform no differently than all male-managed funds and have similar risk profiles. For single-style funds, those with mixed teams of both genders underperform male-only funds on both a raw and risk-adjusted basis, although mixed funds incur less risk and their Sharpe ratios do not differ. For funds of funds, both all-female and mixed funds have similar performance to male-managed funds. We then consider the failure rate across all fund styles. Funds with at least one female manager fail at higher rates, driven by difficulty in raising capital—these funds are smaller and are less likely to be closed to new investment. Surviving funds with at least one female manager have better performance than male-managed surviving funds, consistent with the idea that female managers need to perform better for their funds to survive. Yet, female-managed surviving funds have fewer assets under management than surviving male-managed funds. Using media mentions as a proxy for investor interest, female-managed funds receive proportionately less attention. Our results suggest that there are no inherent differences in skill between female and male managers, but that only the best performing female managers manage to survive.     

Global equity fund performance, portfolio concentration, and the fundamental law of active management

This paper investigates the relation between portfolio concentration and the performance of global equity funds. Concentrated funds with higher levels of tracking error display better performance than their more broadly diversified counterparts. We show that the observed relation between portfolio concentration and performance is mostly driven by the breadth of the underlying fund strategies; not just by fund managers’ willingness to take big bets. Our results indicate that when investors strive to select the best-performing funds, they should not only consider fund managers’ tracking-error levels. More important is that they take into account the extent to which fund managers carefully allocate their risk budget across multiple investment strategies and have concentrated holdings in multiple market segments simultaneously.     

Termination Risk, Multiple Managers and Mutual Fund Tournaments

This study analyzes the risk-taking behavior of mutual funds in response to their relative performance over the 1992 to 1999 period. Our results show that managers of funds whose performance is closer to that of the top performing funds have greater incentives to increase their portfolios' risk than managers at the top who exhibit a tendency to lock in their positions. The evidence suggests that termination risk imposes a constraint on the risk taking behavior of under-performing fund managers and the winner takes all phenomenon generates a strong incentive for the fund managers to be the top manager. We also analyze the difference in the risk taking behavior of funds managed by multiple managers and single managers.     

Performance persistence and style consistency of Indian fixed income mutual funds – A longitudinal study

In this study, we evaluate the performance of Indian fixed-income mutual funds using a comprehensive sample over a ten-year period from April 2010 to March 2020. We examine performance persistence of 190 fixed income funds across 16 fund categories and analyze investment style of the most persistent and top performing funds. We assess performance persistence using recursive portfolio formation test, and analyze investment style using Sharpe's (1992) asset class factor model supplemented with Lobosco and diBartolomeo (1997) approach for statistical robustness. We also study the correlation between performance persistence and style consistency and find persistent funds to be less consistent in style. Our findings indicate that a substantial proportion (73%) of the funds considered were under-performers. Our results pertaining to style analysis indicate substantial drift in investment style from regulator-mandated investment objectives. Further, the study nudges regulators to revisit the prevailing practice of fund classification based on Macaulay's duration. In light of the growing prominence of Indian fixed income securities, the findings of this study are all the more pertinent to investors, asset management companies and policy makers.     

Liquidity shocks,size and the relative performance of hedge fund strategies

We examine whether the increase in the flow of capital to hedge funds over the period 1994–2005 had a negative impact on performance. More specifically, we study the relative performance of small versus large funds for each of the hedge fund strategies. Our results indicate that on an absolute return basis, small funds outperform large funds. On a risk-adjusted return basis, however, we find that large funds outperform small funds, and that large funds are also shown to hold less liquid assets and take on less systematic and idiosyncratic risk than small funds. Further, funds that experience positive liquidity shocks generally outperform those that experience negative liquidity shocks. We also find evidence that hedge fund managers that are aggressive in dealing with liquidity shocks perform better than hedge fund managers that are conservative in dealing with liquidity shocks.     

Do machines beat humans? Evidence from mutual fund performance persistence

We study the performance persistence of quantitative actively managed US equity funds. We show that the persistence of quantitative funds originates from poor performers and that there are reversals at the top of the performance scale, which is no different from the widely accepted evidence in the mutual fund literature. When testing for differences in performance persistence between quantitative and non–quantitative funds, we find no differences for poorly performing funds, but we observe significantly more reversals for quantitative funds at the top of the performance distribution. We also find that the differences in performance persistence are not explained by differences in flow–induced incentives to generate alpha, as there is no heterogeneity in investors preferences when allocating capital to these funds. Overall our results are consistent with machines having less skill than their human counterparts.     

Gender,style diversity,and their effect on fund performance

This paper examines the performance of 358 European diversified equity mutual funds controlling for gender diversity. Fund performance is evaluated against funds’ designated market indices and representative style portfolios. Consistently with previous studies, proper statistical tests point to the absence of significant differences in performance and risk between female and male managed funds. However, perverse market timing manifests itself mainly in female managed funds and in the left tail of the returns distribution. Interestingly, at fund level there is evidence of significant overperformance that survives even after accounting for funds’ exposure to known risk factors. Employing a quantile regression approach reveals that fund performance is highly dependent on the selection of the specific quantile of the returns distribution; also, style consistency for male and female managers manifests itself across different quantiles. These results have important implications for fund management companies and for retail investors’ asset allocation strategies.     

International mutual fund returns and Federal Reserve policy

This study examines the performance of international mutual fund indexes across alternative Federal Reserve monetary policy environments. The results suggest that the benefits touted by advocates of international diversification may be less than previous studies indicate. Specifically, during restrictive US monetary policy periods, international mutual fund indexes provide lower excess returns than domestic counterparts. Additionally, the correlations between international mutual funds and domestic mutual funds are higher during restrictive monetary policy periods. This evidence may represent a partial explanation for the home country bias exhibited by US-based individual and institutional investors.     

What determines fund performance persistence? International evidence

We study performance persistence across a global sample of equity mutual funds from 27 countries. In contrast to the existing U.S.‐based evidence, we find that net performance persistence is present in the majority of fund industries, suggesting that fund manager skill is commonplace rather than a rarity. Consistent with the intuition that more competition in the mutual fund industry makes remaining a winner fund less likely but keeping a loser fund at the bottom of the performance ranks more probable, we show that competitiveness explains the cross‐sectional variation in performance persistence.     

Do Funds Make More When They Trade More?

We model fund turnover in the presence of time‐varying profit opportunities. Our model predicts a positive relation between an active fund's turnover and its subsequent benchmark‐adjusted return. We find such a relation for equity mutual funds. This time‐series relation between turnover and performance is stronger than the cross‐sectional relation, as the model predicts. Also as predicted, the turnover‐performance relation is stronger for funds trading less‐liquid stocks and funds likely to possess greater skill. Turnover is correlated across funds. The common component of turnover is positively correlated with proxies for stock mispricing. Turnover of similar funds helps predict a fund's performance.     

A Time to Scatter Stones,and a Time to Gather Them: The Annual Cycle in Hedge Fund Risk Taking

Analyzing a sample of hedge fund daily returns from Bloomberg, we find a seasonal pattern in their risk taking. During earlier months of a year, poorly performing funds reduce risk. The reduction is stronger for funds with higher management fees, shorter redemption periods, and recently deteriorating performance, consistent with a managerial aversion to early fund liquidation. Toward the end of a year, poorly performing funds gamble for resurrection by increasing risk. It is largely achieved by increasing exposure to market factors, and can be linked to stronger indirect managerial incentives during the second half of a year.     

Fund portfolio networks: A climate risk perspective

Within Europe, investment funds are more exposed to climate-sensitive economic sectors than banks, insurers, and pension funds. However, few climate-related financial risk assessments of the fund sector have been conducted. We use 8 trillion EUR of fund portfolio holdings to help fill this gap, using the network of portfolio overlaps. Funds with more polluting portfolios (brown funds) invest across more firms than funds with cleaner portfolios (green funds). This apparent diversification hides a concentration risk: brown funds are more closely connected with each other (have more similar portfolios) than green funds, which tend to herd less (have less similar portfolios with each other). This suggests that, in the event of a widespread climate-related financial shock, brown funds will face greater stress levels than green funds. A climate risk scenario exercise confirms this: among total system losses of 443 billion EUR, brown funds' losses are typically between two and three times higher than green funds' losses. Brown funds also have more systemic impact: because they play a more central role in the investment fund network, brown funds contribute twice as much towards system-wide losses as green funds. These findings suggest that, despite the growing attention paid to sustainable investing, systemic vulnerabilities remain and many funds' portfolio diversification approaches do not yet adequately incorporate climate risk.     

How Investors Interpret Past Fund Returns

The literature documents a convex relation between past returns and fund flows of mutual funds. We show this to be consistent with fund incentives, because funds discard exactly those strategies which underperform. Past returns tell less about the future performance of funds which discard, so flows are less sensitive to them when they are poor. Our model predicts that strategy changes only occur after bad performance, and that bad performers who change strategy have dollar flow and future performance that are less sensitive to current performance than those that do not. Empirical tests support both predictions.     

Real Estate Fund Flows and the Flow-Performance Relationship

Convexity in the flow-performance relationship of traditional asset class mutual funds is widely documented, however it cannot be assumed to hold for alternative asset classes. This paper addresses this shortcoming in the literature by examining the flow-performance relationship for real estate funds, specifically open-end, direct-property funds. This investment vehicle is designed to provide the risk-return benefits of private market real estate and is available to retail investors in many countries across the globe. An understanding of fund flow dynamics associated with this investment vehicle is of particular interest due to the liquidity risk associated with holding an inherently illiquid asset in an open-end structure. Our analysis draws on the theoretical foundations provided in the literature on mutual fund flows, performance chasing, liquidity risk, participation costs and dynamics across market cycles. We focus on German real estate funds from 1990 to 2010 as this is the largest market globally and there is a high level of confidence in the data. The results show that real estate fund investors chase past performance at the aggregate level and the relationship between flows and relative performance is asymmetric (i.e., convex) at the individual fund level. Fund-level liquidity risk tends to weaken convexity, while sensitivity increases with higher participation costs. We find the flow-performance relationship varies across time, though our interpretation is asset and investment vehicle specific. The implications are applicable to investors and fund managers of open-end, direct-property funds and, more broadly, other alternative asset funds where the underlying asset may not be liquid.     

Commonalities in investment strategy and the determinants of performance in mutual fund mergers

This paper examines the determinants of cross-sectional variation in post-merger mutual fund performance. Mergers between funds with similar management objectives, as reflected by average portfolio book-to-market ratio, price–earnings ratio, beta and market capitalization values, outperform mergers between funds with dissimilar strategies. This superior performance transcends lower portfolio rebalancing costs which might be realized between merging funds which hold more assets in common. These results suggest that mutual fund mergers create collaborative benefits between funds with similar strategies. We also examine if fund governance structures influence the fund pairing process, testing if stronger fund oversight mitigates pairing mismatches. We find that less independent boards of trustees and boards with higher compensation are related to greater strategic mismatches between funds. These results suggest that more entrenched boards are more tolerant of fund mismatches which benefit the investment company, yet are not in investor’s best interests.     

Why Does Performance Persistence Vary Among Closed-End Funds?

This study extends the research on closed-end fund performance persistence by investigating whether the persistence of both net asset value (NAV) and market price returns of U.S. registered closed-end funds is related to various fund characteristics. The sample consists of 505 closed-end funds, which are investigated over the period from January 1976 to December 1996. The analysis tests whether persistence is related to the fund characteristics size, goal, management fees, turnover, fund family membership, fund experience, and the exchange on which a fund is traded. The results vary across holding periods used to calculate persistence but are similar with respect to the NAV and market price returns. Funds with lower expense ratios and funds traded on the NYSE show more persistence of strong NAV and market price performance.     

Termination Risk, Multiple Managers and Mutual Fund Tournaments

This study analyzes the risk-taking behavior of mutual fundsin response to their relative performance over the 1992 to 1999period. Our results show that managers of funds whose performanceis closer to that of the top performing funds have greater incentivesto increase their portfolios' risk than managers at the topwho exhibit a tendency to lock in their positions. The evidencesuggests that termination risk imposes a constraint on the risktaking behavior of underperforming fund managers and the winnertakes all phenomenon generates a strong incentive for the fundmanagers to be the top manager. We also analyze the differencein the risk taking behavior of funds managed by multiple managersand single managers. JEL Classification codes: G2 L2     

Picking funds with confidence

We present a new approach to selecting actively managed mutual funds that uses both portfolio holdings and fund return information to eliminate funds with predicted inferior performance through a sequence of pairwise fund comparisons. Our methodology determines both the number of skilled funds and their identities, and locates funds with substantially higher risk-adjusted returns than those identified by conventional alpha-ranking methods. We find strong evidence of time-series variation in both the number of funds identified as superior using our approach, as well as in their performance across different economic states.     

Is ethical money financially smart? Nonfinancial attributes and money flows of socially responsible investment funds

We study the money flows into and out of socially responsible investment (SRI) funds around the world. In their investment decisions, investors in SRI funds may be more concerned with ethical or social issues than with fund performance. Therefore, SRI money flows are less related to past fund returns. Ethical money is less sensitive to past negative returns than are conventional fund flows, especially when SRI funds primarily use negative or Sin/Ethical screens. Social attributes of SRI funds weaken the relation between money inflows and past positive returns. However, money flows into funds with environmental screens are more sensitive to past positive returns than are conventional fund flows. Stock picking based on in-house SRI research increases the money flows. These results give evidence on the role of nonfinancial attributes, which induce heterogeneity of investor clienteles within SRI funds. We find no evidence of a smart money effect, as the funds that receive more inflows neither outperform nor underperform their benchmarks or conventional funds.