We examine gross flows to mutual funds and find that existing investors punish poorly performing funds by increasing outflows. We also find that existing and potential investors punish poorly performing funds by reducing inflows. Finally, we uncover that current investors respond to poor...

Using a large sample of monthly gross flows from 1997 to 2003, we uncover several previously undocumented regularities in investor behavior. First investor purchases and sales produce fund-level gross flows that are highly persistent. Persistence in fund flows dominates performance as a...