This chapter evaluates the returns of the domestic equity funds of three major American companies: Vanguard, Fidelity, and Dimensional Fund Advisors relative to benchmarks using the Fama-French factors from January 2001 through December 2018. We also present Sharpe's (1992) style analysis...

This paper analyzes the effect of investor monitoring on the performance of equity investment funds. For that purpose, we analyze the relationship between fund performance, measured using four-factor Alpha, and a set of control variables and monitoring proxy variables. We used monthly data for...

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...

We study the relation between mutual fund trades and mass media coverage of stocks. We find that funds exhibit persistent differences in their propensity to buy media-covered stocks. Moreover, this propensity is negatively related to their future performance. Funds in the highest propensity...

Using fund raw return as a proxy for unsophisticated flows, I find that future fund performance increases in alpha and decreases in flow. I show that funds holding stocks which, in aggregate, have been sold by funds with low flows do better in the future. Such stocks have had their prices pushed...

Closed-end funds have been a topic of lively debate for several decades. In this paper we focus on studies relating to liquidity, sentiment and segmentation and, in particular, on studies that investigate closed-end country funds. We extend the previous survey by Dimson & Minio-Kozerski (1999)...

Utilizing monthly aggregate flow data for U.S. equity mutual funds over 1986-2008, we document several new findings on investor behavior. First, we find a strong negative relationship between changes in expected market volatility as measured by the VIX index and net equity fund flows. Second, we...

We show that mutual fund managers' trading experiences bias their future repurchasing decisions. Specifically, a fund is 17% more likely to repurchase a stock when it previously sold the stock for a gain rather than for a loss. Fund managers still prefer to repurchase stocks they sold for a gain...

We use portfolio holdings to show that mutual funds preferentially trade stocks according to the stocks' sentiment betas. Stocks with high sentiment betas are more responsive to investor sentiment and increase (decrease) in value as sentiment increases (decreases). Sentiment-based trades may be...

This paper analyzes how the existence of sector funds (specialists) within a mutual fund family affects the performance and investment behavior of affiliated diversified equity funds (generalists). First of all, I show that specialists have stock picking skills. Second, information flows from...