On paper, momentum is one of the most compelling factors: simulated portfolios based on momentum add remarkable value, in most time periods and in most asset classes, all over the world. So, our title may seem unduly provocative. However, live results for mutual funds that take on a momentum...

We examine how institutional investors trade stocks with high research and development (R&D) expenses and investigate whether they can detect value-relevant R&D. We document significant differences between hedge funds and other institutional investors in terms of their trading in high R&D...

This paper explores the role mutual fund herding plays on the return comovement in Chinese stocks. The results show that mutual fund herding significantly reduces the return comovement among Chinese stocks, providing evidence for the existence of a rational herding behavior by mutual funds. We...

We examine institutional trading in relation to changes in consensus recommendations over time. We find that pre-Reg FD's positive contemporaneous relation between hedge fund trading and change in consensus becomes negative after Reg FD, but the positive relation between non-hedge fund trading...

We challenge the common view that smart beta strategies and factor tilts are equivalent. Initially, the term “smart beta” referred to strategies that broke the link between the price of a stock and its weight in the portfolio or index. Capitalization weighting does not do that — neither...

In our paper — “How Can ‘Smart Beta' Go Horribly Wrong?” — we show, using U.S. data, that the relative valuation of a strategy (in comparison with its own historical norms) is correlated with the strategy's subsequent return at a five-year horizon. The high past performance of many of...

Recent studies have documented that institutional investors trade contrary to the predictions of the book-to market anomaly. We examine whether a prominent sub-group of institutional investors, namely hedge funds, differ from other institutions in terms of their trading behavior with respect to...

This paper investigates the relationship between upside potential and future hedge fund returns. We measure upside potential based on the maximum monthly returns of hedge funds (MAX) over a fixed time interval, and show that MAX successfully predicts cross-sectional differences in future fund...

This paper investigates hedge funds' ability to time industry-specific returns and shows that funds' timing ability in the manufacturing industry improves their future performance, probability of survival, and ability to attract more capital. The results indicate that best industry-timing hedge...