We develop a new method for detecting portfolio manager activity. Our method relies exclusively on portfolio returns and, consequently, avoids the pitfalls associated with disclosed portfolio holdings. We investigate the link between activity and performance of actively managed U.S. equity funds...

Islamic funds are an upcoming alternative to conventional funds, aided by the increasing prominence of Islamic finance. This paper contributes to the extant literature by comparing the performance of Islamic and conventional funds during crisis and recovery periods. In contrast to most previous...

We focus on correlation between the estimates of manager’s skills to invest and the frequency of measurement results obtained by them, which can lead to distortion of investment decisions. We found that estimates of performance measures depend not only on the frequency of observations, but on...

It is well-established in the financial literature that the global performance of mutual fund managers is the result of two skills: selectivity and market timing. This paper examines whether the multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) approach improves our...

Mutual funds (in the form of open-end unit trusts) were introduced in the Italian financial system in 1984. In this paper we assessed mutual fund performance in Italy in the decade April 1989-March 1999. We used absolute performance data, portfolio compositions and net inflows data to measure...

Mutual fund manager excess performance should be measured relative to their self-reported benchmark rather than the return of a passive portfolio with the same risk characteristics. Ignoring the self-reported benchmark results in different measurement of stock selection and timing components of...

This article provides a review of the rapidly developing literature on investment performance evaluation. The goals are to summarize the significant forces and contributions that have brought this field of research to its current state of knowledge and to suggest directions for future research....

Market timing is the ability of portfolio managers to anticipate stock market return by increasing (decreasing) portfolio sensitivity in upward (downward) markets. To assess market timing, the financial literature has proposed return-based and holdings-based measures. Our objective is to analyze...

We use the financial crisis of 2007–2009 as a laboratory to examine the costs and benefits of teams versus single managers in asset management. We find that when a fund uses complex trading strategies involving the use of CDS team-managed funds outperform solo-managed funds. This may be due to...

Islamic and conventional investment funds have the same purpose. However, unlike conventional funds, Islamic funds offer different investment contracts and have to invest in accordance with a set of selection rules. This dissertation focuses on developing theoretical and empirical analysis...