Look for people, not for alpha: mutual funds success and managers intellectual capital

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iuliia Naidenova ◽  
Petr Parshakov ◽  
Marina Zavertiaeva ◽  
Eduardo Tomé

Purpose – This paper aims to explore whether individual intellectual capital of a fund manager allows mutual fund to outperform market. Design/methodology/approach – The sample includes 85 Russian equity funds for the period of 2013. First, Jensen’s alpha for each fund has been calculated, and then cross-sectional regression analysis has been used. While only a part of fund managers publish biographic sketches, the authors use the Heckman procedure to control for self-selection issues. Findings – The results support the idea that the individual characteristics indicate the possibility to earn abnormal alpha. Managers with economic education and with Moscow education perform better than others. Relationship between both fund performance measures and manager’s experience has inverted U-shape. Jensen’s alpha reaches its highest level at the point of 9 years, whereas beta – at 10 years of manager’s experience. Research limitations/implications – Investigation can be improved by including more variables that influence the disclosure of managers’ personal information, for example, by conducting surveys. Additionally, cross-sectional data restrict the analysis. Practical implications – The discovered characteristics of managers’ intellectual capital can be used as additional screening tool for the investor who is deciding on mutual fund choice in Russia. While individual intellectual capital is observable and more persistent in time in comparison with the past fund performance, such tool allows better decision-making. Originality/value – This is the first paper that explores which characteristics of Russian fund managers are connected with higher abnormal return (measured by Jensen’s alpha) and risk (beta) of mutual funds.

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (12) ◽  
pp. 5505-5531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Grinblatt ◽  
Gergana Jostova ◽  
Lubomir Petrasek ◽  
Alexander Philipov

Classifying mandatory 13F stockholding filings by manager type reveals that hedge fund strategies are mostly contrarian, and mutual fund strategies are largely trend following. The only institutional performers—the two thirds of hedge fund managers that are contrarian—earn alpha of 2.4% per year. Contrarian hedge fund managers tend to trade profitably with all other manager types, especially when purchasing stocks from momentum-oriented hedge and mutual fund managers. Superior contrarian hedge fund performance exhibits persistence and stems from stock-picking ability rather than liquidity provision. Aggregate short sales further support these conclusions about the style and skill of various fund manager types. This paper was accepted by Tyler Shumway, finance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Hoa Thi Nguyen ◽  
Dung Thi Nguyet Nguyen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of mutual funds’ performance at both a country level and a fund level in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach The different types of funds with more than three-year operation are selected to remove outliers of the stock market boom from 2015 to 2018. The data set includes 54 mutual funds operating during the period from 2008 until November 2018. Findings The research finds that there is a positive relationship between macroeconomics and mutual funds’ performance. Furthermore, country-level governance such as regulation effectiveness, political stability, economic growth and financial development has a positive correlation with mutual funds’ performance. However, the impact of fund-level factors is diverse with the no significant impact of board size on mutual fund’s performance, while passive funds perform better than active funds in Vietnam. Practical implications The research results suggest that investors should pay attention to the types of funds and operating expense when making an investment decision in mutual funds. There are some recommendations for both government policy-makers and the mutual fund industry that are likely to facilitate the development of this field in Vietnam. Originality/value The research contributes to the understanding of what are the factors that should be considered when investing in mutual funds.


2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swasti Gupta-Mukherjee

AbstractAlthough stock returns of intangibles-intensive firms tend to exceed physical assets-intensive firms, risk-adjusted returns of actively managed mutual funds significantly decrease (increase) with their portfolios’ exposure to intangibles-intensive (physical assets-intensive) firms. Fund managers tend to exhibit skill when they focus on difficult-to-value (e.g., small) firms, except when the firms are intangibles-intensive. In sum, the worst-performing funds are in areas of the market that seem to offer ample opportunities for professional investors due to exacerbated mispricing. The negative impact of investments in intangibles-intensive firms on fund performance appears to be driven by extrapolation bias and decreases with learning from experience.


Author(s):  
Cai Li ◽  
Rosemond Atampokah ◽  
Helena Akolpoka ◽  
Priscilla Avonie ◽  
Baku R. Kwame

Development across the globe has been an agenda many citizens of the world champion irrespective of the area, sector or discipline within which it is being advocated. Politically, socially, and in the world of economics, mutual fund has gained significance within country’s economic environment. The phenomenal growth in the financial market of mutual funds can be attributed to the increase in the various financial schemes available, improvement in fund mobilization, as well as the growth of investments in the country. We examined the impact of macroeconomic variables on mutual fund performance of all mutual fund companies in Ghana over the period of 2008 to 2016. We performed correlation analysis, hence examined the co-movement of the returns from the selected funds with the key macroeconomic variables. We find macroeconomics variables positively affect the returns of funds. The effect comes by the amount of money available for investments. We further find exchange rate as the strongest macroeconomic variable affects the performance of mutual funds in Ghana. We established that Ghana receives a significant amount of foreign portfolio investment (FPI), where investors in other countries bring in their money to make investment on our financial markets. Our results provide evidence for fund managers on approach in dealing with macroeconomic conditions and its volatilities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 549-565
Author(s):  
Diego Víctor de Mingo-López ◽  
Juan Carlos Matallín-Sáez ◽  
Amparo Soler-Domínguez

PurposeThis study aims to assess the relationship between cash management and fund performance in index fund portfolios.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 104 index mutual funds that track the Standard and Poor 500 stock market index from January 1999 to December 2016, the authors employ quintile portfolios and different regression models to assess the differences in risk-adjusted monthly returns experienced by index funds managing different cash levels in their portfolios. To ensure the robustness of the results, different sub-periods and market states are considered in the analyses as well as other exogenous factors and fund characteristics affecting the level of portfolio cash holdings and index fund performance.FindingsResults show that index funds holding higher levels of cash and cash equivalents performed significantly worse than their low-cash counterparts. This evidence remains even after considering different sub-periods and bullish and bearish market conditions and controlling for fund expenses and other variables that could drive this cash-performance relationship.Originality/valueThis study expands the extant literature analyzing cash management in the mutual fund industry. More specifically, the analyses focus on index fund portfolios that replicate a specific benchmark, given that their performance differences should not be related to the market evolution but to the factors derived from the fund management and other exogenous issues. These findings are of interest to managers and investors willing to improve their risk-adjusted returns while investing as diversified as a stock market index.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Avinash Ghalke ◽  
Shripad Kulkarni

PurposeWhen a fund manager leaves, the investment strategy of the fund changes or remains the same. The departing fund manager's resignation is either forced or voluntary. The study investigates the relationship between the portfolio manager's transition and the fund's investment strategy and how the change affects the mutual fund returns in the subsequent period.Design/methodology/approachThe authors examine 148 fund manager changes in India between April 2005–March 2018 using three performance measures: abnormal return (fund return minus benchmark return), Jensen's alpha and Carhart four-factor alpha. The analysis includes an event study methodology, followed by a two-step Fama–MacBeth regression approach.FindingsContrary to the previous studies conducted in the developed markets, the authors find that fund performance improves irrespective of whether the fund manager change is forced or voluntary. The outperformance after the fund manager's exit is significant for funds belonging to the larger fund families.Originality/valueIn the context of investment management, the authors provide a conceptual framework to understand the effect of fund manager exit on mutual fund performance. The authors substantiate their arguments with empirical evidence. To the best of the authors' understanding, this is the first research to examine the effect of changing mutual fund managers in an emerging market setting.


Author(s):  
Ashrafee T. Hossain ◽  
Samir Saadi ◽  
Maxim Treff

Managerial skill is a key determinant of a hedge fund’s success. Identifying the key characteristics of successful managers is important because of a strong relation between hedge fund performance and managerial skills. This chapter provides a brief history of some highly successful hedge fund managers as well as a discussion of the different demands of the hedge fund industry versus other pooled investments, such as mutual funds. Furthermore, the chapter examines the differences between hedge fund and mutual fund managers involving return expectations, performance measures, and compensation. Next the chapter explores the key characteristics that hedge fund managers should possess to be successful. Although some characteristics are easy to identify and measure, others are less so. The chapter also includes a detailed discussion of social versus human capital.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1288-1310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Ngoc Nguyen ◽  
Muhammad Sadiq Shahid ◽  
David Kernohan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of investor confidence on mutual fund performance in two relatively vulnerable but leading emerging markets, India and Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach A pooled ordinary least squared (OLS) model is used to look at two alternative measures of investor confidence and test for the relationship between investor confidence and mutual fund returns. To check the robustness of the findings, the authors also implement two-stage least squares and generalized method of moments techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity problems in the regressors. Findings The paper finds that the returns of mutual funds are positively associated with investor confidence and an interaction effect exists between investor confidence and persistence in performance. The paper also confirms that returns from mutual funds are associated with different fund characteristics such as fund size, turnover, expense, liquidity, performance persistence and the fund’s age. These findings remain robust to alternative model specifications and measures of investor confidence. Originality/value While the previous literature mainly focuses on mutual fund characteristics and the macroeconomic determinants of mutual fund returns, this paper demonstrates that investor confidence plays an important role in determining mutual fund performance. The authors attribute this finding to two relatively unique features of the emerging markets in the study. A lack of awareness of mutual funds as being a low-cost investment vehicle and the interplay of cultural and behavioral changes have prevented investor’s savings from being channeled into investment products, away from gold or property.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Hribernik ◽  
Uroš Vek

Mutual Fund Performance in Slovenia: An Analysis of Mutual Funds with Investment Policies in Europe and the Energy Sector This paper examines the risk and return performance of mutual funds in Slovenia from 2005 until August 2009. The research is limited to the regional investment policies in Europe and the energy sector. Using monthly returns, we analyzed different risk-adjusted measures such as: the Treynor ratio, the Sortino ratio and the Information ratio. We also studied selections and timing ability using the Treynor-Mazuy model. The risk and return performance of mutual funds in the Slovenian market does not deviate from those in developed markets. We also found out that the selection ability of fund managers is better than market timing and that the findings of this paper are in accordance with other international studies.


2011 ◽  
Vol 01 (03) ◽  
pp. 607-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kosowski

This paper shows that the stylized fact of average mutual fund underperformance documented in the literature stems from expansion periods when funds have statistically significant negative risk-adjusted performance and not recession periods when risk-adjusted fund performance is positive. These results imply that traditional unconditional performance measures understate the value added by active mutual fund managers in recessions, when investors' marginal utility of wealth is high. The risk-adjusted performance (or alpha) difference between recession and expansion periods is statistically and economically significant at 3% to 5% per year. Our findings are based on a novel multi-variate conditional regime-switching performance methodology used to carry out one of the most comprehensive examinations of the performance of US domestic equity mutual funds in recessions and expansions from 1962 to 2005. The findings are robust to the choice of the factor model (including bond and liquidity factor extensions), the use of NBER business cycle dates, fund load, turnover, expenses and percentage of equity holdings.


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