Deconstructing Herding: Evidence from Pension Fund Investment Behavior

In this paper, we examine herding across asset classes and industry levels. We also study what incentives managers at various layers of the financial industry face when investing. To do so, we use unique and detailed monthly portfolios between 1996 and 2005 from pension funds in Chile, a pioneer in pension-fund reform. The results show that pension funds herd more in assets that have more risk and for which pension funds have less market information. Furthermore, the results show that herding is more prevalent for funds that narrowly compete with each other, namely, when comparing funds of the same type across pension fund administrators (PFAs). There is much less herding across PFAs as a whole and in individual pension funds within PFAs. These herding patterns are consistent with incentives for managers to be close to industry benchmarks, and might be also driven by market forces and partly by regulation.     

Mutual Fund Herding and the Impact on Stock Prices

We analyze the trading activity of the mutual fund industry from 1975 through 1994 to determine whether funds "herd" when they trade stocks and to investigate the impact of herding on stock prices. Although we find little herding by mutual funds in the average stock, we find much higher levels in trades of small stocks and in trading by growth-oriented funds. Stocks that herds buy outperform stocks that they sell by 4 percent during the following six months; this return difference is much more pronounced among small stocks. Our results are consistent with mutual fund herding speeding the price-adjustment process.     

Fund managers' herding and the sensitivity of fund flows to past performance

This study provides a new explanation for the weak sensitivity of investors' flows to poor fund performance based on fund managers' incentives to herd from career concerns. We show that a manager's decision to trade with (against) the herd decreases (increases) significantly investors' willingness to redeem capital from underperforming funds. We argue that this differential investor reaction to poor performance conditional on herding explains the lower termination risk identified among herding managers. We also find that financial intermediaries do not mitigate this sub-optimal investors' response. Our findings support the view that underperforming funds can retain larger payoffs if they herd.     

Mutual fund herding its impact on stock returns: Evidence from the Taiwan stock market

Using quarterly ownership data which identify identity codes of mutual funds in Taiwan, we investigate mutual fund herding and its impact on stock price. We show that mutual funds tend to follow their own steps in trading rather than follow trades made by other funds. More importantly, evidence of price continuation following mutual fund herd buying suggests that such herding is based on value-relevant information and is consistent with the investigative herding hypothesis. Alternatively, evidence of return reversal following mutual fund herd selling suggests that such herding is non-informational and is consistent with the characteristic herding hypothesis.     

Herding behavior in the Pakistan stock exchange: Some new insights

This study attempts to examine the presence of herding behavior in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). The novel contribution of this paper is that it investigates the herding phenomenon from a large number of facets such as herding of firms towards market, herding of firms towards industry portfolios, herding of industry portfolios towards market, herding in mostly traded stocks and in large and small stocks, and herding in the crisis period. For this purpose, we use the herding behavior model of Christie and Huang (1995) on the daily closing prices data of 609 firms listed on the PSX from January 2004 to December 2013. Results show that individual firms do not herd towards market index, except when the market experiences a negative return of 5%. However, when we sort firms into small and large groups based on median market capitalization, results indicate that large firms show herding behavior in extreme market movements. Further, we find that firms in several industries herd towards their industry portfolios. However, we find weak evidence of industry portfolios herding towards the market. We also segregate the impact of financial crisis of 2008 from normal times. These findings support results of our baseline estimation.     

Herding in the German Mutual Fund Industry

This paper analyses the trading activity of German mutual funds in the 1998–2002 period to investigate whether German mutual fund managers are engaged in herding behaviour. Another objective of the study is to determine the impact of this herd‐like trading on stock prices. Our results provide evidence of herding and positive feedback trading by German mutual fund managers. We show that a significant portion of herding detected in the German market is associated with spurious herding as a consequence of changes in benchmark index composition. Investigating the impact of mutual fund herding on stock prices, we find that herding seems to neither destabilise nor stabilise stock prices.     

Herd behaviour & investor sentiment: Evidence from UK mutual funds

The aims of this paper are to detect evidence of institutional investor herding behaviour and examine the role that investor sentiment plays in institutional investor herding behaviour. The herding behaviour is investigated by examining the dispersion of time varying beta of UK open-end and closed-end funds. The study finds evidence of fund managers' herding behaviour, which suggests they are likely to herd on market portfolio, size, and value factors. UK market-wide investor sentiment index is used for investigating the effects of investor sentiment on institutional herding behaviour. We find a unidirectional investor sentiment effect on the herding of UK mutual fund managers. We also reveal that the sentiment factors affecting UK open-end and closed-end fund managers herding behaviour are different due to the differences in fund structure.     

Herding by mutual funds: impact on performance and investors’ response†

In this paper we investigate whether herding by actively managed equity funds affects their performances and flows over the 1980–2013 period. We show that during the herding quarter, on average, funds that trade with the herd benefit from this behavior. Although this does not directly translate into a positive association between the extent to which funds herd and their subsequent performance, we find that the funds that follow the herd earn negative abnormal returns whereas the ones that lead earn no abnormal returns. Our results also indicate that investors react adversely to follower funds while they are neutral towards the leader funds.     

Institutional Traders' Behavior in an Emerging Stock Market: Empirical Evidence on Polish Pension Fund Investors

Abstract:   In this paper, we contribute to the literature on institutional herding and feedback trading by analysing the investment behavior of pension funds on the Polish stock market. Pension funds entered into the stock market due to the national pension system reform in 1999, providing a unique opportunity to receive deeper insight into the behavior of institutional investors in an emerging capital market. Our results show that Polish pension fund investors are to a greater extent involved in herd‐like behavior and pursue feedback trading strategies more often than their counterparts in mature markets. This finding is primarily attributed to a stringent investment regulation and high market concentration. We do not detect, however, that trading by the pension funds exerts significant influence on the future stock prices.     

Evidence of herding and positive feedback trading for mutual funds in emerging Asian countries

When analysing the behavior of investors, the emphasis is usually on positive feedback and herding behavior, and the existing literature abounds with studies on the domestic strategy of mutual funds or on their impact. Due to the advantages in terms of the data, many studies investigate US data. However, with the increased flows of capital into emerging markets, studying the behavior of international mutual funds in emerging markets has become more and more important. Nevertheless, studies involving emerging markets are relatively rare. This study examines whether the positive feedback effect and herding behavior exist in Asian markets based on mutual fund data covering the period from 1996 to 2004. The long period enables us to test the sensitivities under the following four conditions, namely the capital volatility (volatile vs. stable), the degree of suffering during the Asian crisis (more suffering vs. less suffering), and the timing of the Asian crisis (pre-, during, and post-crisis), using the exchange rate regime. It was found in this study that mutual fund inflows into the Asian market were attracted by positive stock returns and currency appreciation. Furthermore, it was found that the positive feedback effect and herding behavior did exist in the Asian markets. However, the extent of the above behavior is not the same under different conditions.     

基金业绩归因与投资者行为

本文以2006年1月至2016年12月中国64家股票型主动管理基金为样本,从基金净资金流变化的角度,检验了投资者决策与基金业绩结构的关系,以期更好地理解投资者行为。本文结论有:(1)整体上,投资者在衡量基金经理能力时,更关注原始超额收益率或只基于市场风险调整风险敞口,这可能与中国市场投资工具仍然不够充分、风险难以有效对冲有关;(2)机构投资者相比个人投资者对风险敞口的识别更严格;(3)简单模型的优势集中在市场波动低、投资者情绪高的时期;(4)除基金经理能力外,净资金流变化对市场风险报酬也很敏感;(5)从alpha的角度,我国基金市场仍存在“赎回异象”,可能与“处置效应”有关,仍需提升投资者对风险的认知,引导市场形成更加科学的投资观念。     

隐性杠杆约束、流动性风险和投资者情绪

本文以2003—2019年间开放式主动管理型的股票型和偏股型基金为样本,以持仓占比为权重估算基金投组中A股的总市场风险暴露,检验结果表明,该序列上升反映了基金面临的隐性杠杆约束收紧,刻画了市场的弱流动性。内在逻辑在于,流动性收紧时,投资者难以通过融资直接增加杠杆,更倾向于重仓持有高市场风险头寸的股票而间接实现杠杆。本文发现隐性杠杆约束所刻画的风险在股票或基金收益截面上的无条件定价基本失效,而条件定价则依赖于低市场情绪与弱流动性。分解基金持股的敞口,进一步发现,因中小盘基金在流动性收紧时具有更强的流动性偏好,其持股的市场风险头寸能够更敏锐地捕捉到弱流动性风险。     

Mutual fund herding and audit pricing

This study investigates how investor trading behavior affects audit pricing by examining mutual fund herding in specific. When mutual fund managers herd due to information cascade, mimicking incentive, or agency problem, it causes information friction and weakens their monitoring effectiveness. Heightened governance risk is associated with higher audit risk and thus higher audit pricing. In our empirical tests, we find that herding weakens mutual funds’ information advantage and monitoring effectiveness, ultimately resulting in higher audit fees. To mitigate the endogeneity concern, we employ the natural experiment of the 2004 SEC regulation change on mutual fund disclosure frequency to capture exogenous change in herding intensity. Our findings are robust using propensity score matching method and alternative measures. Consistent with our conjecture, we document that firms facing stronger mutual fund herding are associated with deteriorated corporate disclosure quality.     

Herding and the information content of trades in the Australian dollar market

This study shows that the information content of FX transactions depends on the identity of market participants. Using spot FX transactions of a major Australian bank, we find that central banks have the greatest price impact, followed by non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) such as hedge funds and mutual funds. Trades by non-financial corporations have the least impact on dealer pricing. In the interbank market, dealers with greater private information tend to choose direct trading which has lower post-trade transparency. Indirect trading via brokers is partially revealed to the market and has little price impact. The price impact largely comes from institutions in the top quartile of the trading volume. Furthermore, NBFIs have the greatest propensity for herding, followed by interbank dealers. Non-financial corporations do not herd in their trades. Except for central banks, the differential impact of market participants can largely be explained by their propensity for herding.     

Portfolio concentration and fund manager performance

This research examines the relationships among portfolio concentration, fund manager skills, and fund performance in Taiwan's equity mutual fund industry, yielding several empirical findings as follows. First, after controlling for other factors, concentrated equity funds tend to have smaller net asset values, larger fund flows, higher turnover rates, and a younger age and prevail in smaller fund families. Second, concentrated fund managers buy and sell stocks more smartly based on economic trends or market factors than do diversified fund managers, i.e., they have better market‐timing abilities. Third, only partial evidence supports the premise that concentrated equity funds have better next‐quarter risk‐adjusted performances than do diversified ones, as these fund managers' skills positively correlate to risk‐adjusted fund performance. Fourth, fund managers who have better stock‐picking abilities and intensively invest in certain industries generally exhibit better Carhart's alpha in the next quarter than do other fund managers. Fifth, fund managers' stock‐picking abilities more closely relate to long‐term performance than do their market‐timing abilities. Lastly, positive performance persistence is much stronger than negative performance persistence, but concentrated funds do not have stronger performance persistence than do diversified funds.     

Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence, and Capital Flows

This paper investigates the performance and capital inflows of private equity partnerships. Average fund returns (net of fees) approximately equal the S&P 500 although substantial heterogeneity across funds exists. Returns persist strongly across subsequent funds of a partnership. Better performing partnerships are more likely to raise follow‐on funds and larger funds. This relationship is concave, so top performing partnerships grow proportionally less than average performers. At the industry level, market entry and fund performance are procyclical; however, established funds are less sensitive to cycles than new entrants. Several of these results differ markedly from those for mutual funds.     

The performance of US bond mutual funds

We evaluate the performance of the US bond mutual fund industry using a comprehensive sample of bond funds over a long time period from January 1998 to February 2017. In this one study, we examine bond fund selectivity, market timing and performance persistence. We evaluate bond funds relative to their self-declared benchmarks and in terms of both gross-of-fee returns and net-of-fee returns. We document considerable abnormal performance among funds both to the fund (gross returns) and to the investor (net returns). Bond fund performance is found to be superior in the post financial crisis period. However, past strong performance cannot be relied upon to predict future performance. Finally, while some funds exhibit market timing ability; we find a predominance of negative market timing among US bond mutual funds.     

Time-varying fund manager skills of socially responsible investing (SRI) funds in developed and emerging markets

We examine stock selectivity and timing abilities in the market-wide return, volatility and liquidity of SRI fund managers. We find that multi-dimensional fund manager skills are time-varying and persistent in the short run, with developed market funds exhibiting longer persistence in all dimensions. Fund manager skills tend to be affected by fund characteristics (i.e., expense ratio, fund size, turnover and management tenure) and market characteristics (i.e., ESG market capitalization, mandatory ESG regulation and 10–2 yield spread). Fund managers of developed (emerging) market funds outperform (underperform) the market indices. For both fund types, fund managers possess exceptional volatility and liquidity timing despite poor return timing. Moreover, fund managers focus more (less) on timing the market’s return and less (more) on picking stocks when the prospect of recession keeps increasing (decreasing). Interestingly, if fund managers attempt to time the market-wide return or liquidity, stock selectivity will be worsened by their timing behavior.     

Industry herding in crypto assets

The aim of this paper is to investigate if herd behaviour is present in crypto assets at industry level. Using price information extracted from coinmarketcap.com between 29 April 2013 and 9 May 2022, we find evidence of herding and reverse herding in the crypto assets market. Concentrated periods of herding and reverse herding are particularly evident in the January 2020–April 2022 Covid period. At industry level, herding is more profound in large sectors with higher volatility. In smaller sectors where ventures are backed by ‘real assets’, very short periods of herding with marginal significance are detected. Reverse herding is present in all industries except Real Estate between June 2021 and May 2022, implying that strategies such as excessive ‘flight to quality’ or/and token picking are at play during the recent crypto crash. We also detect varying asymmetric herding at industry level. This paper further examines the factors that drive such industry herding and reverse herding in the crypto assets market, and our results show that industry concentration and investor sentiments contribute to the probability of herding/reverse herding. Our study provides further insights to the forces that drive the dispersion in crypto assets prices and contribute to the behavioural studies of the crypto market.     

中国文化产业投资基金组建模式研究

文化产业投资基金发展滞后是制约中国文化产业快速发展的重要外部原因。从文化产业发展的阶段、文化产业投资的风险和其发展模式等方面进行比较分析可以得出,相对于风险投资基金和专项资金而言,产业基金是服务文化产业发展的较优选择;由于受到文化产业自身、市场环境和中国产业基金发展水平等约束,公司型基金要比有限合伙人和契约型基金更适合中国文化产业基金组织形式。因此,要实现文化产业和文化产业基金的发展还需要从政府适度介入、政策配套和培养复合型人才三个方面入手,有效化解文化产业发展的资金约束。