Active opportunity in the market, measured by cross-sectional dispersion in stock returns, significantly influences fund performance. Active strategies have the greatest impact on returns during periods of high dispersion, when alpha produced by the most active funds significantly exceeds that...

We study whether sell-side financial analysts' physical attractiveness is associated with their job performance. We find that attractive analysts make more accurate earnings forecasts than less attractive analysts. Moreover, more attractive analysts make stock recommendations that are more...

We propose a portfolio holdings-based method for evaluating global equity funds that decomposes excess returns versus benchmark indices into contributions from six equity and three currency ‘style factors', and alpha. The method is used to characterize sources of performance for institutional...

We model the tax drag from active funds management based on reported monthly holdings of active equity funds. Tax drag erodes 65% of the 0.74% excess return in Broad Market funds, but only 21% of the 1.80% excess return in Small-Cap funds for Australian superannuation (pension) fund investors....

We use portfolio holdings data to examine the performance of 143 global equity funds over the period 2002 to 2012. We find that the average global equity manager outperforms their benchmark by 1.2% to 1.4% per annum before fees. Attribution analysis reveals that the prime source of excess return...

We use portfolio holdings data to examine the performance of 143 global equity funds over the period 2002 to 2012. We find that the average global equity manager outperforms their benchmark by 1.2% to 1.4% per annum before fees. Attribution analysis reveals that the prime source of excess return...

We relate capacity constraints for hedge funds to the size of their cohort, measured by the total assets of funds applying a similar strategy identified using return correlations. Fund performance is shown to have a significant negative relation with cohort size, bit no clear relation with...