Using the herding measures of Lakonishok, Shleifer and Vishny (1992) (LSV) and Frey, Herbst and Walter (2007) (FHW), we assess herding by French equity mutual funds between 1999 and 2005. We show that LSV herding amounts to 6.5% while FHW herding is about 2.5 times stronger. We observe that...

We show that Chinese actively managed stock mutual funds persistently exhibit a preference for growth stocks over value stocks, despite the fact that value stocks outperform growth stocks on average. Moreover, funds with a growth tilt do not under-perform their value-oriented peer funds. To...

Islamic finance is the fastest growing segment of the global financial system and has been experiencing an impressive double-digit growth in recent history. Following the growth trend of Islamic finance, a rapidly rising affluent and well-educated Muslim middle class from the Islamic world and...

The study explores a relationship between divergence in ESG scores (measurements of a company's performance in environmental, social and governance issues) and excess stock returns on the European equity market. The sample consists of 851 European stocks in the period from January 2015 to May...

We explore the transmission of the ECB's public sector asset purchase programme (PSPP) via the portfolio rebalancing of investment funds and their investors. Evidence for this channel would validate several theoretical propositions and provide insights into market perceptions of intervention...

I find evidence of valuable private information in the Chinese stock market. First, Chinese actively managed stock mutual funds outperform passive benchmarks including market, size, value, and momentum factors. Most funds appear to have skill, and much of that skill consists of stock-picking...

The purpose of this study is to assess whether the analysts' activity is valuable for investors, i. e., whether the managers follow the analysts' forecasts and whether those who follow are able to achieve higher returns. We analyzed the behavior of investment fund managers in the Brazilian...

We find that aggregate net equity fund flows are strongly negatively correlated with changes in expected future stock market volatility as measured by the VIX. Implying that investor purchase decisions are primarily driven by returns and sale decisions by risk perceptions, we further find that...