Processing qualitative information about a firm's product market competition matters for professional investors. Consistent with a superior understanding of a firm's market power, fund managers who overweight companies with the fewest competitors (monopolies) outperform their peers. An exogenous...

Taking a firm's competitive position into account benefits investors who are better at evaluating this qualitative information. I find that fund managers who overweight companies with market power outperform their peers. Placebo exercises and an exogenous shock to product market competition...