We investigate hedge fund firms' unobserved performance (UP), measured as the riskadjusted return difference between a fund firm’s reported return and hypothetical portfolio return derived from its disclosed long equity holdings. Fund firms with high UP outperform those with low UP by 7.2%...

We study the long-run outcomes associated with hedge funds' compensation structure. Over a 22-year period, the aggregate effective incentive fee rate is 2.5 times the average contractual rate (i.e., around 50% instead of 20%). Overall, investors collected 36 cents for every dollar earned on...

This paper focuses on an unexplored dimension of fund managers' timing ability: market-wide tail risk implied by information in options markets. We investigate whether hedge fund managers can strategically time market tail risk implied by options through adjusting their portfolios' market...

This paper investigates the relationship between upside potential and future hedge fund returns. We measure upside potential based on the maximum monthly returns of hedge funds (MAX) over a fixed time interval, and show that MAX successfully predicts cross-sectional differences in future fund...

This paper proposes a novel database merging approach and re-examines the fundamental questions regarding hedge fund performance. Before drawing conclusions about fund performance, we form an aggregate database by exploiting all available information across and within seven commercial databases...

We analyse and contrast the performance of discretionary and systematic hedge funds. Systematic funds use strategies that are rules-based, with little or no daily intervention by humans. In our experience, some large allocators shy away from systematic hedge funds altogether. A possible...

This paper updates the performance of those equity long/short mutual funds analyzed in “Hedge Funds Versus Hedged Mutual Funds: An Examination of Long/Short Funds” (The Journal of Alternative Investments, Winter 2014) (McCarthy, 2014). Section 1 of this paper focuses on the period July 2013...

In this paper, we examine the ability of hedge funds and funds of hedge funds to generate absolute returns using fund level data. Based on the comparison of the empirical distributions of the holding period returns of hedge funds, a U.S. stock index and a U.S. bond index, we classify hedge funds...

We exploit detailed transaction and position data for a sample of long-short equity hedge funds to study the trading activity of fundamental investors. We find that hedge funds exhibit skill in opening positions, but that they close their positions too early, thereby forgoing about a third of...

In this paper, we introduce an approach to building classifiers that bifurcate hedge funds into systematic and discretionary funds and evaluate their performance. This approach makes use of textual analysis and statistical learning methods that are free from the subjective judgment of investment...