Assessing the credit risk of money market funds during the eurozone crisis

This paper measures credit risk in prime money market funds (MMFs) and studies how such credit risk evolved during the eurozone crisis of 2011–2012. To accomplish this, we estimate the annualized expected loss on each fund's portfolio. We also calculate by Monte Carlo the cost of insuring a fund against losses amounting to over 50 basis points. We find that credit risk of prime MMFs, though small, doubled from 12 basis points in June 2011 to 23 basis points in December 2011 before receding in 2012. Contrary to common perceptions, this did not primarily reflect funds’ credit exposure to eurozone banks because funds took measures to reduce this exposure. Instead, credit risk in prime MMFs rose because of the deteriorating credit outlook of banks in the Asia/Pacific region. We conclude that the increase in the credit risk of prime MMFs in the second half of 2011 reflected contagion in the worldwide banking system coupled with slowing global economic growth, not actions taken by MMFs.     

Volatility in the federal funds market and money market spreads during the financial crisis

We analyze the role of federal funds rate volatility in affecting risk premium as measured by various money market spreads during the 2007–2009 financial crisis. We find that volatility in the federal funds market contributed to elevated Overnight Index Swap (OIS) spreads of unsecured bank funding rates during the crisis. Using OIS as a proxy for market expectations, we also decompose London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor) into its permanent and transitory components in a dynamic factor framework and show that increased volatility in the federal funds market contributed to substantial transitory movements of Libor away from its long-run trend during the financial crisis.     

The price of liquidity: CD rates charged by money market funds

We examine the cost of liquidity in rates on CDs purchased by money market funds (MMFs). We find no evidence that rates vary directly with the size of CDs. However, we do find that large MMFs receive higher rates on large CDs than small MMFs. This suggests banks pay for (potential) liquidity.     

The dynamic relationship among the money market mutual funds,the commercial paper market,and the repo market

In this paper, we present the short-run and the long-run relationships among the financial assets of the money market funds, the commercial paper market, and the repurchase agreement market by undertaking a cointegration analysis of quarterly data over the 1985–2017 period. This was based on the empirical observation that the commercial paper and repo markets account for 50 percent of the assets of money market funds. The evidence suggests that there exists a common long-term cointegrating trend among these three components of the shadow banking system. Any disequilibrium in this long-run relationship among these variables is corrected by movement in the financial assets of money market funds. The Beveridge-Nelson decomposition from the estimated cointegrating relationship shows that the cyclical component of money market funds is large and captures huge swings in these markets during the financial crisis. We also find evidence of change in these dynamic relationships in the post-crisis period, where in addition to the money market funds, the commercial paper market also exhibits a tendency to correct for the disequilbrium.     

Country and industry concentration and the performance of international mutual funds

We examine the relation between country and industry portfolio concentration and performance using a data set of international equity mutual funds. When sorted by concentration measures, funds in the most concentrated quintile outperform those in the most diversified quintile by 0.16% and 0.30% monthly in country and industry dimensions, respectively. Further analysis shows that the superior performance of concentrated funds is largely driven by industry rather than country concentration, suggesting the existence of global industry private information. Finally, we show that industry-concentrated funds rotate top-holding industries less frequently than their diversified counterparts, and that the industries these funds purchase subsequently outperform the industries they sell.     

Comovements in volatility in the euro money market

This paper assesses the sources of volatility persistence in Euro Area money market interest rates and the existence of linkages relating volatility dynamics. The main findings of the study are as follows. Firstly, there is evidence of stationary long memory, of similar degree, in all series. Secondly, there is evidence of fractional cointegration relationships relating all series, except the overnight rate. The common long memory factor analysis points to a two-factor volatility curve. The most important factor, in terms of proportion of total variance explained, can be interpreted as a level factor (64% of total variance), while the other as a slope factor (13% of total variance). Impulse response analysis and forecast error variance decomposition finally point to non significant forward transmission of liquidity shocks.     

Testing for persistence in mutual fund performance and the ex-post verification problem: evidence from the Greek market

The present study examines a series of performance measures with the aim of solving the ex-post verification problem. These measures are employed to test the performance persistence hypothesis of domestic equity funds in Greece, during the period 1998–2004. Correctly adjusting for risk factors and documented portfolio strategies explains a significant part of the reported persistence. The intercept of the augmented Carhart regression is proposed as the most appropriate performance measure. Using this measure, weak evidence for persistence, only before 2001, is documented. The growth of the fund industry, the direction of flows to past winners and the integration in the international financial system are suggested to be the reasons for the absence of performance persistence.     

成交量大幅增长 市场利率走势分化 2008年2月全国银行间同业拆借与债券系统交易情况综述

2008年2月,全国银行间货币和债券市场整体运行平稳。各市场成交量大幅增长;货币市场利率走势分化,与上月末最后一个交易日（2008年1月31日）相比,Shibor的7天、2周、1个月和3个月期限品种的报价出现下降,其余期限品种的报价则出现上升。     

成交量稳定增长 市场利率走势分化——2008年1月全国银行间同业拆借与债券系统交易情况综述

2008年1月,全国银行间货币和债券市场整体运行平稳。各市场成交量稳定增长;货币市场利率走势分化,除隔夜品种和1个月Shibor的报价下降之外,其余各期限品种的Shibor报价均出现上升。     

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.     

成交量大幅上升 市场利率明显上涨2007年全国银行间同业拆借与债券系统交易情况综述

2007年,全国银行间货币和债券市场整体运行平稳。各市场成交量稳定增长;货币市场利率明显上涨,3个月期限以下的货币市场利率波动较大,3个月（含三个月期限）到1年期的货币市场利率则稳定上扬。     

成交量大幅增长市场利率先扬后抑 2007年1季度全国银行间同业拆借与债券系统交易情况综述

2007年1季度，全国银行间货币和债券市场运行平稳。各市场成交量大幅增长，货币市场流动性较为充足，春节及新股发行等因素使市场资金一度趋紧，货币市场利率呈倒“V”型走势；债券综指受加息影响稳中趋降，收益率曲线整体上移。     

Persistent performance in the mutual fund market: Tests with funds and investment advisers

Recent studies of mutual funds have concluded that there is some evidence of superior performance. We test for the existence of superior performance and its persistence with mutual funds and mutual fund investment advisers on a data set of monthly returns from 1979 to 1989 for 1,387 mutual funds grouped by 243 advisers. We find no evidence of superior performance or its persistence but we do find significant evidence of persistence of inferior performance. Consistent with previous studies our findings depend on the benchmark chosen, with multiple benchmarks producing a larger degree of inferior performance.     

保险中介市场风险状况及监管对策

当前,随着保险中介市场的快速发展,市场风险状况不容乐观,一般性风险普遍存在,个别机构因严重违法造成的风险已相当严重,同时,因保险中介经营模式创新引发的风险也不容忽视。这些风险如不能采取有效的监管措施加以控制,势必对保险中介市场平稳健康发展带来严重冲击。为此,应加快完善监管法律法规和制度,严格市场准入并建立有效的市场退出制度,强化保险公司对代理机构和保险营销员的管理责任,改革现行个人保险营销体制,细化从业人员资格考试,实行从业人员分级管理,充分发挥行业协会的自律职能。     

Market segmentation and the valuation of closed-end country funds: An empirical analysis

This article examines the role of market segmentation on the valuation of the U.S. stock exchange-listed closed-end country funds and analyzes the determinants of net fund premia in a multivariate context. It is shown that fund returns are generally sensitive to both national and U.S. market factors, but only national factors are priced. Cross-section and time series estimation of net fund premia indicates the importance of market segmentation as a determinant of net fund premia. There is some evidence that exchange rate changes may exert an additional influence. However, market expectation variables such as economic growth of the country or relative capitalization rates are insignificant.     

隐性行业壁垒、市场集中度与中国保险经纪市场结构演进

对于保险经纪市场结构的研究,传统方法是运用市场集中度和市场壁垒指标,而由于我国正处在经济转型期,市场特点与发达国家有所不同,本文提出了隐性行业壁垒的分析方法。基于2005年~2009年保险经纪市场数据进行的两种不同的实证研究显示,我国保险经纪市场结构的演进趋势有所不同:传统分析方法的结果表明,保险经纪市场的总体特征是垄断性较低、竞争性较强,且呈现出竞争性逐步增强的趋势;隐性行业壁垒方法的结果表明,保险经纪市场中存在有较为明显的垄断性特征,且这种垄断性特征随着时间的变化呈现出增强的趋势,结论的差异值得保险经纪市场的监管者、参与者等利益相关者予以高度重视。     

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.     

Pairs trading in the UK equity market: risk and return

In this paper, we provide the first comprehensive UK evidence on the profitability of the pairs trading strategy. Evidence suggests that the strategy performs well in crisis periods, so we control for both risk and liquidity to assess performance. To evaluate the effect of market frictions on the strategy, we use several estimates of transaction costs. We also present evidence on the performance of the strategy in different economic and market states. Our results show that pairs trading portfolios typically have little exposure to known equity risk factors such as market, size, value, momentum and reversal. However, a model controlling for risk and liquidity explains a far larger proportion of returns. Incorporating different assumptions about bid-ask spreads leads to reductions in performance estimates. When we allow for time-varying risk exposures, conditioned on the contemporaneous equity market return, risk-adjusted returns are generally not significantly different from zero.     

美国货币市场与联储救市政策工具的实施效果

金融危机爆发后,美国货币市场流动性几近枯竭,为重启和恢复货币市场功能,美联储新增多种政策工具向金融机构提供了大量流动性。该文重点分析了这些政策工具的设计意图及实施效果,指出实施救助后,美国货币市场运行趋于正常,但除短期国债市场外,其他子市场的融资量尚未恢复到危机前水平;美国货币市场的表现再现了美国实体经济的问题,而要解决这些问题,单靠联储的货币政策是远远不够的。     

The price of ethics and stakeholder governance: The performance of socially responsible mutual funds

Do investors pay a price for investing in socially responsible investments (SRI) funds, or do they obtain superior returns? This paper investigates these under- and overperformance hypotheses for all SRI funds across the world. Consistent with investors paying a price for ethics, SRI funds in the US, the UK, and in many continental European and Asia-Pacific countries underperform their domestic benchmarks by − 2.2% to − 6.5%. However, with the exception of some countries such as France, Japan and Sweden, the risk-adjusted returns of SRI funds are not statistically different from the performance of conventional funds. We also find that the underperformance of SRI funds is not driven by loadings on an ethics style factor. There is mixed evidence of a smart money effect: SRI investors are unable to identify the funds that will outperform in the future, whereas they show some fund-selection ability in identifying funds that will perform poorly. Finally, corporate governance and social screens yield lower risk-adjusted returns.