Commodity Mutual Funds

The chapter describes the main institutional features of commodity mutual funds, including active management, the assets in which these funds invest, the process through which shares are bought and sold, the fees borne by investors, as well as the risks associated with investing in the funds. It also examines trends in fund flows and the correlations to commodity returns. Correlations to commodity returns are positive but lower than those of commodity exchange-traded funds that invest directly in underlying commodities, as opposed to commodity mutual funds, which invest largely in equities. Lastly, the chapter examines data on fees and net-of-expense commodity mutual fund performance between 1996 and 2016. The data show a decline in fund expense ratios over time, with the exception of large funds, negative average risk-adjusted performance using a four-factor model, and evidence consistent with lack of persistence in fund returns over the sample period.

Explaining the expense ratio of international equity funds

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of fund expense ratio for Malaysia-based international equity funds. An understanding of what these factors are and how they affect a fund’s expense ratio is important given that international funds can be expensive to operate and that fund expenses have negative impact on investors’ returns. Design/methodology/approach This study employs a standard cross-sectional regression model in examining the factors that influence fund expense ratio of international equity funds. Findings The findings show that sales charge is positively related to fund expense ratio although it is not included in the expense ratio computation. This suggests that investor could possibly incur additional “hidden cost” since sales charge represents an upfront cost that an investor has already paid at the time of the fund sale. Additionally, funds with aggressive investment objective and frequent portfolio turnover show higher expense ratios than funds with conservative investment objective and less trading activities. There is no evidence that fund size, fund age, and the number of funds in a fund family are significantly related to the fund expense ratio. While the lack of statistical finding for fund size in this study seems inconsistent with the results of the US market in general, the finding is supportive of the Thai equity fund market and thus implying that finding could be country specific. Research limitations/implications There is limited availability of international equity funds in Malaysia. Practical implications The findings provide useful insights for investors to make informed international fund selection decisions. Expense-conscious investors should pay particular attention to fund’s sales charge, turnover ratio, and its investment objective when selecting funds for investment. Originality/value This paper provides first evidence on the determinants of fund expense ratio of Malaysia-based international equity funds.

The Strategic Setting Of Real Estate Mutual Fund Expense Ratios

Real estate mutual fund expense ratios are analyzed using panel data comprising 1,130 observations. The results show that expense ratio is inversely related to share class assets, fund family size, and fund age. Conversely, the expense ratio is positively related to larger funds and fund families with superior performance. This result is interesting because individual fund classes with favorable performance are associated with lower expense ratios. The results are robust to common estimation methodologies.

Board compensation, holdings and mutual fund expense ratios

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how board compensation and holdings are related to mutual fund expense ratios. Previous studies find that compensation and expense ratios are positively correlated and argue that this relationship is potential evidence of rent sharing, whereby excessively compensated boards fail to negotiate with fund managers for lower shareholder fees.Design/methodology/approachUsing a dataset of US open‐end mutual funds, the author examines how geographic‐based salary data, director profession, director fund holdings and fund returns might explain the relationship between compensation and fees.FindingsThe results provide additional support for potential rent sharing between fund managers and directors and are robust to alternative measures of director compensation, fund sales loads, director holdings and fund returns.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited by the sample size and the lack of time series data of the hand‐collected dataset. Data are collected from 598 funds in the year 2003.Practical implicationsThese findings suggest that mutual fund expense ratios may be affected by potential agency costs.Social implicationsMutual fund regulatory focus has been predominantly focused on the independence of board chairmen, but this study shows that compensation may also be a significant contributor to fund governance.Originality/valueThis study is unique in its recent focus on fund expense ratios and board compensation and examining potential explanations for this relationship.