We document that prior work experience of mutual fund managers outside of the asset management industry is valuable from an investment perspective in that it provides managers with a stock picking and industry timing advantage. Fund managers' stock picks from industries where they previously...

This study examines how the efficiency of trading desks operated by mutual fund families affects the performance and trading of affiliated funds. We estimate the trading efficiency of a fund family's trading desk as the difference between the gross return of the family's index fund, which...

This study provides evidence that investors' demographic similarity to CEOs facilitates informed trading after accounting for selective distribution of information. Mutual fund managers overweight firms whose CEOs resemble them in terms of age, ethnicity, and gender. Significantly higher trade...

We document that, on average, U.S. equity mutual funds prefer realizing capital losses rather than capital gains. A substantial fraction of the sample, however, exhibits the opposite tendency of realizing gains more readily than losses. The documented tendency for this subset appears to be due...

US equity mutual funds, on average, prefer realization of capital losses to capital gains. Nevertheless, a substantial fraction exhibits the disposition effect of realizing gains more readily than losses. My analysis suggests that learning effects have reduced the manifestation of the...

Using detailed holdings of exchange-traded options, we examine how mutual funds use options and how options affect portfolio performance and risk. Options users underperform nonusers by two to three percent per year. The underperformance is especially pronounced for funds that are heavy users of...

Using detailed options holdings, we examine how mutual funds' use of options affects performance and risk. Using options generates, on average, no performance advantages. In fact, funds that follow certain distinct strategies underperformed. The only salutary impact is lower portfolio risk for a...