Short sellers are perceived as informed, sophisticated investors. Yet little is known about their actual performance and trading strategies. Using a novel, hand-collected data set of daily position disclosures in Europe, we identify the entry, change, and exit dates of large short-sale positions...

While it is established that idiosyncratic volatility has a negative impact on the cross-section of future stock returns, the relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and future hedge fund returns is largely unexplored. We document that hedge funds with high idiosyncratic volatility...

We develop a new tail risk measure for hedge funds to examine the impact of tail risk on fund performance and to identify the sources of tail risk. We find that tail risk affects the cross-sectional variation in fund returns, and investments in both, tailsensitive stocks as well as options,...

We investigate hedge fund firms' unobserved performance (UP), measured as the riskadjusted return difference between a fund firm’s reported return and hypothetical portfolio return derived from its disclosed long equity holdings. Fund firms with high UP outperform those with low UP by 7.2%...

Fund families strategically shape their member funds' behavior to target specific groups of investors with varying performance and service needs. In this paper I introduce a new measure to identify performance-oriented and service-oriented funds. Matching theories from the industrial...

This paper develops two measures of performance inconsistency based on information derived from funds' actual performance and their disclosed portfolio holdings. Using these measures, we show that funds with unskilled managers and poor performance are associated with greater inconsistency....

This paper investigates empirically whether uncertainty about volatility of the market portfolio can explain the performance of hedge funds both in the cross-section and over time. We measure uncertainty about volatility of the market portfolio via volatility of aggregate volatility (VOV) and...

This paper investigates empirically whether uncertainty about the expected returns on the market portfolio can explain the performance of hedge funds both in the cross-section and over time. We measure uncertainty via volatility of aggregate volatility (VOV) and construct an investable version...

Using 13F position valuations, we show that hedge fund advisors intentionally mismark their stock positions. We document manipulation even after eliminating issues inherent in the pricing of illiquid securities. Hedge fund advisors mark their positions up (down) following poor (good) performance...

This paper studies the “confidential holdings” of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where the quarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a significant delay through amendments to the Form 13F. Our evidence supports hiding private information as the dominant motive for...