We investigate the performance of the German equity mutual fund industry over 20 years (monthly data 1990-2009) using the false discovery rate (FDR) to examine both model selection and performance measurement. When using the Fama-French three factor (3F) model (with no market timing) we find at...

Investment funds provide a low cost method of sharing in the rewards from capitalism. Recently “alternative investments” such as hedge funds have grown rapidly and the trading strategies open to hedge funds are now becoming available to mutual funds and even to ordinary retail investors. In...

This paper surveys and critically evaluates the literature on the role of management effects and fund characteristics in mutual fund performance. First, a brief overview of performance measures is provided. Second, empirical findings on the predictive power of fund characteristics in explaining...

We use a multiple hypothesis testing framework to estimate the false discovery rate (FDR) amongst UK equity mutual funds. For all funds, we find a relatively high FDR for the best funds of 67% (at a 10% significance level), which indicates that only around 2% of all funds truly outperform their...

We apply a recent nonparametric methodology to test the market timing skills of UK equity mutual funds. The methodology has a number of advantages over the widely used regression based tests of Treynor-Mazuy (1966) and Henriksson-Merton (1981). We find a relatively small number of funds (around...

We evaluate the academic research on mutual fund performance in the US and UK concentrating particularly on the literature published over the last 20 years where innovation and data advances have been most marked. The evidence suggests that ex-post, there are around 2-5% of top performing UK and...

There is now a substantial literature on the effects of rebalancing on portfolio performance. It is widely argued in the theoretical literature that rebalanced strategies are inherently likely to generate greater terminal wealth than unrebalanced strategies, although empirical studies do not...

Using a comprehensive data set on (surviving and non-surviving) UK mutual funds (April 1975 - December 2002), we use a bootstrap methodology to distinguish between 'skill' and 'luck' for individual funds. This methodology allows for non-normality in the idiosyncratic risks of the funds - a major...

The UK's defined benefit pensions industry makes widespread use of pooled investment vehicles which are provided by a large number of fund management groups. In this paper we provide the first comprehensive performance analysis of these funds. Using data on 734 pooled funds, that had a combined...

Using a comprehensive data set of almost 300 UK closed-end equity funds over the period 1990 to 2013, we use the false discovery rate to assess the alpha-performance of individual funds with both domestic and other mandates, using self-declared benchmarks and additional risk factors. We find...