Revisiting mutual fund performance evaluation

Mutual fund manager excess performance should be measured relative to their self-reported benchmark rather than the return of a passive portfolio with the same risk characteristics. Ignoring the self-reported benchmark results in different measurement of stock selection and timing components of excess performance. We revisit baseline empirical evidence fund performance evaluation utilizing stock selection and timing measures that incorporate the self-reported benchmark. We introduce a new factor exposure based approach for measuring the – static and dynamic – timing capabilities of mutual fund managers. We overall conclude that current studies are likely to be misstating skill because they ignore the managers’ self-reported benchmark in the performance evaluation process.     

Daily mutual fund flows and redemption policies

We examine how redemption policies affect daily fund flows in open-end mutual funds. Since short-term trading of fund shares, as manifested in daily fund flows, can have an adverse impact on returns to the fund’s shareholders, mutual funds might find it desirable to discourage short-term trading through the use of redemption fees. However, if daily fund flows are due to fund shareholders’ legitimate liquidity demands, the redemption fee would have little effect on daily fund flows and possibly adversely affect fund shareholders by imposing a liquidity cost on them. We find that the likelihood of a fund charging a redemption fee is largely a function of its overall fee structure. We also use a sample of funds that imposed redemption fees to examine whether the distribution of daily fund flows changes after the initiation of the redemption fee. We find that the redemption fee is an effective tool in controlling the volatility of fund flows.     

The timing ability and global performance of Tunisian mutual fund managers: A multivariate GARCH approach

It is well-established in the financial literature that the global performance of mutual fund managers is the result of two skills: selectivity and market timing. This paper examines whether the multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) approach improves our perception of the global performance of fund managers compared with the unconditional approach and the conditional approach based on instruments. We find strong evidence that the multivariate GARCH method makes mutual fund performance looks better relative to the existent approaches, but this improvement in the global performance does not mean necessarily that mutual funds outperform traditional benchmarks. Indeed, mixed mutual funds yield neutral performance relative to benchmarks, whereas bond mutual funds generate significant positive global coefficients. The strong performance of bond fund managers comes from their ability to pick profitable bonds, not from their ability to time the market. Also, the empirical tests highlight that the best (worst) bond funds in the past remain at the top (bottom) of the ranking in the following years. These findings suggest that the Tunisian bond market presents strong opportunities for sophisticated investors.     

The influence of buy-side analysts on mutual fund trading

We present evidence on the trading and performance impact of buy-side analysts. Using data provided by a large global asset manager, we relate buy-side analysts’ recommendations to fund transactions on a daily basis. We show that buy-side analysts significantly influence trading decisions: Fund managers strongly follow recent recommendation revisions, even after controlling for other trading determinants. Positive abnormal returns to buy-side analysts’ revisions are also reflected in the performance of mutual fund trades: Trades triggered by buy-side recommendations have higher returns than other trades. Overall, the impact of buy-side analysts is more pronounced than that of sell-side analysts.     

How to measure mutual fund performance: economic versus statistical relevance

In the present paper a comprehensive assessment of existing mutual fund performance models is presented. Using a survivor‐bias free database of all US mutual funds, we explore the added value of introducing extra variables such as size, book‐to‐market, momentum and a bond index. In addition to that we evaluate the use of introducing time‐variation in betas and alpha. The search for the most suitable model to measure mutual fund performance will be addressed along two lines. First, we are interested in the statistical significance of adding more factors to the single factor model. Second, we focus on the economic importance of more elaborate model specifications. The added value of the present study lies both in the step‐wise process of identifying relevant factors, and the use of a rich US mutual fund database that was recently released by the Center for Research in Security Prices.     

Framing and the disposition effect: evidence from mutual fund investor redemption behaviour

Research on decision-making under uncertainty has highlighted that individuals often use simple heuristics and/or exhibit behavioural biases. Specifically, with respect to portfolio decisions, research has indicated that investors are subject to the disposition effect, i.e. they are reluctant to sell assets that have performed poorly (losers) and prone to sell assets that have performed well (winners). We find that the mutual fund investors in our sample are subject to the disposition effect when they withdraw the redemption proceeds from their account, but not when they reallocate the proceeds within the account. The evidence is consistent with Shefrin and Statman’s hypothesis that framing a transaction as a transfer as opposed to a sale mitigates the disposition effect.     

Australian equity mutual fund size effects

Berk and Green propose a model of a superannuation fund industry, with a limited population of superior fund managers and a competitive investor market. In this market, superior fund managers capture the value they generate, leaving investors with a normal return on their investment. Furthermore, it is argued that previous period returns, age of the fund and management costs explain variation in net cash flow paid into a fund over time. The Berk and Green predictions find some support in empirical tests, reported in the present paper, based on Australian Morningstar retail and wholesale equity fund data over the period 1995–2005.     

Sentimental mutual fund flows

We show that many stylized empirical patterns for mutual fund flows are driven by investor sentiment. Specifically, when sentiment is high, investors exhibit a stronger tendency of chasing past fund performance; fund flows are less sensitive to fund expenses; and investors are attracted more to funds with sheer visibility. Moreover, the well‐documented positive relation between fund flows and future fund performance is significant only during high sentiment periods and is mainly driven by expected component of fund flows. Finally, we show that mutual fund investors exhibit a significantly negative timing ability at the individual fund level when sentiment is high.     

On the short-term persistence of mutual fund performance in Europe

In this article, we examine the short-term persistence in mutual fund performance in the main European markets between January 1990 and December 2022. The mutual fund industry in Europe has experienced significant growth in recent years as a consequence of the integration of its markets. However, the European mutual fund industry is still an unexplored area of research with only a small number of significant studies compared to the US industry. Using a sample of daily survivorship bias-free data on the five most important European mutual fund countries, which includes 2734 mutual funds across all countries, we find statistically significant persistence in the post-ranking quarter across different performance models for all countries. This evidence is present across all deciles including the top-decile and bottom-decile mutual funds. Further, we also extend our analysis to high inflation periods.     

The impact of prior performance on the risk-taking of mutual fund managers

We analyze the impact of prior performance on the risk-taking behavior of mutual fund managers. We contribute to the existing literature by using different measures of risks, a larger data set, and an econometric approach capturing non-linear effects and assigning exact probabilities to the mutual fund managers’ adjustment of behavior. We find that prior performance in the first half of the year has, in general, a positive impact on the choice of the risk level in the second half of the year. Successful fund managers increase the volatility, the beta, and assign a higher proportion of their portfolio to value stocks, small firms, and momentum stocks in comparison to unsuccessful fund managers. Unsuccessful fund manager increase, on average, only the tracking error. We thank an anonymous referee, Bernd Brommundt, Alexander Ising, Stephan Kessler, Axel Kind, Angelika Noll, Jennifer Noll, Ralf Seiz, Stephan Süss, Rico von Wyss, and Andreas Zingg for valuable comments. We acknowledge helpful comments of the participants from the Joint Research Workshop of the University of St. Gallen and the University of Ulm in 2005.     

The impact of the Arab Spring and the Ebola outbreak on African equity mutual fund investor decisions

Financial development and stock markets have been widely considered to be key factors in economic growth. Among institutional investors, mutual funds play a key role in providing financial resources to stock markets, particularly in developing countries. Different from other investments, mutual fund flows could be affected by retail investors’ behavior and their overreaction to specific events. We considered 78 equity mutual funds that are geographically specialized in African countries and observed monthly flows and performance for the period of 2006–2015. We find that two major events, Ebola and the Arab Spring, significantly affected the fund flows, controlling for fund performance, expenses and market returns. Retail investors over-reacted to these major events, withdrawing their savings from the African mutual funds. This result is particularly strong when connected to the media coverage of these events: the higher the number of articles about Arab Spring and Ebola, the higher the withdrawals. These irrational investors’ behavior damaged the funds’ managers market timing ability, and reduced the equity capital injection into African stock markets. Our results have several implications for both holders of frontier market mutual funds and the overall asset management industry.     

Do social factors influence investment behavior and performance? Evidence from mutual fund holdings

We study the economic significance of social dimensions in investment decisions by analyzing the holdings of U.S. equity mutual funds over the period 2004–2012. Using these holdings, we measure funds’ exposures to socially sensitive stocks in order to answer two questions. What explains cross-sectional variation in mutual funds’ exposure to controversial companies? Does exposure to controversial stocks drive fund returns? We find that exposures to socially sensitive stocks are weaker for funds that aim to attract socially conscious and institutional investor clientele, and they relate to local political and religious factors. The financial payoff associated with greater “sin” stock exposure is positive and statistically significant, but becomes non-significant with broader definitions of socially sensitive investments. Despite the positive relation between mutual fund return and sin stock exposure, the annualized risk-adjusted return spread between a portfolio of funds with highest sin stock exposure and its lowest-ranked counterpart is statistically not significant. The results suggest that fund managers do not tilt heavily towards controversial stocks because of social considerations and practical constraints.     

Financial consequences of mutual fund mergers

This study examines the impact of mutual fund mergers on performance and investment flows of target and acquiring funds. Results indicate some improvements in the post-merger performance for target funds shareholders. Results also confirm prior evidence of negative net asset flows in target funds in the pre-merger period as well as negative, but not significant, net asset flows in the years following the merger. However, a more detailed analysis allows us to observe that this lack of significance in the negative reaction of investors to mutual fund mergers is explained by the compensation of abnormally high inflows and outflows in the resultant funds. These substantial flows are significantly above the average in their market segment, especially regarding money flows. This finding provides evidence that investors pay attention to mutual fund mergers, especially institutional investors who are concentrated on the market possibilities resulting from these organizational processes.     

Information flows within financial conglomerates: Evidence from the banks–mutual funds relation

We study how information flows within financial conglomerates by analyzing the relations between mutual funds and banks that belong to the same financial group. We investigate the effect that the lending behavior of affiliated banks has on the portfolio choice of the mutual funds that are part of the same group. We show that funds (fund families) increase their stakes in the firms that borrow from their affiliated banks in the period following the deal by far greater amounts than other unaffiliated funds (fund families). We provide evidence that this strategy is information-driven. The performance of the positions of affiliated funds in the stocks of borrowing firms exceeds that of their other positions in nonborrowing stocks located in the same industry as well as that of other stocks having similar characteristics by up to 1.6% per month. Funds increase (decrease) their stock holdings in those borrowing stocks that subsequently provide positive (negative) abnormal returns, suggesting that they exploit privileged inside information not available to other market participants. This behavior is prevalent largely in funds located in close geographic proximity to their lending banks. Furthermore, it is exhibited mostly by young, small, and poorly performing fund families. Our evidence points to information flows within conglomerates through informal channels such as personal acquaintances.     

Investor risk evaluation in the determination of management incentives in the mutual fund industry

This paper examines the way in which investors evaluate risk in deciding which mutual funds to invest. New fund investment is found to be positively related to a distributed lag of past fund performance with a strong degree of inertia. The relationship is mostly linear with significant nonlinearities at the upper (and possibly the lower) end of the performance spectrum. Investors appear to use publicly available data in a way that is consistent with the theory, giving equal weight in their decisions to the return and market risk components of the performance measure, while ignoring diversifiable risk. Finally, it is shown that improved performance in any year has a significant impact on the earnings of the management company. Because managers are rewarded on the basis of risk adjusted returns, risk neutral managers have no incentive to manipulate risk, except at very high performance levels.     

On the concentration of mutual fund portfolio holdings: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper tests the alternative hypotheses of investment selection skills versus overconfidence of equity mutual funds managers in Taiwan. We find that fund holdings’ concentration levels are high and positively related to funds’ risk-adjusted returns in tranquil market periods; however, the concentration levels are low and more negatively related to risk-adjusted returns in turmoil market periods. The time varying concentration-performance relation is not driven by fund size. Our finding implies that fund managers have superior investment selection skills when the market is less volatile, but they exhibit overconfidence when the market is in turmoil, suggesting an investment strategy of shifting from concentrated funds to more broadly diversified funds when market condition becomes worse.     

Top management turnover an empirical investigation of mutual fund managers

This paper examines the relation between the replacement of mutual fund managers and their prior performance. Using the growth rate in a fund's asset base and its portfolio returns as two separate measures of performance, I document an inverse relation between the probability of managerial replacement and fund performance. The sample of departing fund managers exhibits higher portfolio turnover rates and higher expenses relative to an objective-matched sample of nonreplaced fund managers. The overall evidence is consistent with the presence of well-functioning internal and external market mechanisms for mutual fund managers.     

The impact of mandatory IFRS adoption on foreign mutual fund ownership: The role of comparability

Proponents of IFRS argue that mandating a uniform set of accounting standards improves financial statement comparability that in turn attracts greater cross-border investment. We test this assertion by examining changes in foreign mutual fund investment in firms following mandatory IFRS adoption in the European Union in 2005. We measure improved comparability as a credible increase in uniformity, defined as a large increase in the number of industry peers using the same accounting standards in countries with credible implementation. Consistent with this assertion, we find that foreign mutual fund ownership increases when mandatory IFRS adoption leads to improved comparability.     

Market structure and diversification of mutual funds

This study characterizes a systematic relationship between the diversification incentives and the market structure of the mutual funds industry with investors differentiated by their attitude towards risk. With sufficiently low competition the subgame perfect portfolio equilibrium exhibits maximal risk differentiation. With intensified competition intermediate funds, i.e., those attracting investors with intermediate attitudes towards risk, select diversified portfolios. Finally, we offer a general characterization of how imperfect competition between risk-differentiated funds will generate an equilibrium relationship between risk and expected returns.     

Competition of socially responsible and conventional mutual funds and its impact on fund performance

This paper examines the impact of both socially responsible (SR) and conventional entrant funds on SR incumbent funds using an overlap in portfolio holdings to measure the impact of competition in the US mutual fund industry. This paper’s findings indicate that over the past decade the increase in competition from SR entrants has been associated with an increase in fees but not in capital flow. Moreover, our results show that the increase in the number of SR fund entrants does not have a negative impact on fund performance. This finding implies that despite the significant increase in the number of SR funds entering the market, open and free competition fosters the performance of SR fund participants. Our study concludes that despite the recent growth in the number of SR funds, the SR mutual fund market does not exhibit the key features of a competitive market.