Mutual funds are usually classified based on their stated objectives. If the stated objectives are not the actual objectives the funds pursue, conclusions drawn by investors and researchers based on the stated objectives will be misleading. This study classifies funds based on their attributes (characteristics, investment style, and risk/return measures). We find that the stated objectives of m...

In this paper we study the possible role of managed futures in portfolios of stocks, bonds, and hedge funds. We find that allocating to managed futures allows investors to achieve a very substantial degree of overall risk reduction at, in terms of expected return, relatively limited costs. Apart from their lower expected return, managed futures appear to be more effective diversifiers than hedg...

The standard approach to the evaluation of funds assumes a normal return distribution and uses the variance as a measure of the funds risk. A few characteristics of hedge funds, such as the remuneration mechanism of the portfolio manager, make this assumption unacceptable and the traditional approach of Risk Adjusted Performance (RAP) must be revised before applying it to hedge funds. Some auth...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: This master's thesis examines among the hedge funds managed by a sole manager, whether differences in perfomance and risk between ones managed by female (female funds) and ones managed by male managers (male funds) exists. For simplicity, in this study such differences are refered as the ”gender effects” of hedge fund managers. I also explore whether the gender effect on p...

The concentration on stocks of security investment funds reflects fund managers’ utilization degree of the inefficiency of market, so certain relationship exists between the performance of funds and the concentration on stocks. By analyzing practical data of Chinese stock investment funds, the relationship between the performance and the concentration on stocks is tested in the article, and the...

The paper analyzes the intensity of choice in an agent based financial optimization problem. Mean-variance optimizing agents choose among mutual funds of similar styles but varying performance. We specify a model for the allocation of new funds, switching between funds, and withdrawals and obtain statistically significant estimates of the intensity of choice parameter. This estimate is also giv...

The study shows the areas in which inefficient mutual funds are lagging behind and how they can improve their performance to bring them at par with other efficient mutual funds. Using data envelopment analysis approach, this study compares the relative efficiency of aggressive growth mutual funds. We study the efficiency of mutual funds in terms of risk-adjusted performance, load, 12b-1 plan, a...

This paper provides an overview of the most important statistical properties of individual hedge fund returns. We find that the net-of-fees monthly returns of the average individual hedge fund exhibit significant skewness, excess kurtosis, as well as positive first-order serial correlation. The correlations between hedge funds in the same strategy group are of a similar order of magnitude as th...

This paper investigates hedge fund performance and risk. The empirical evidence indicates that hedge funds differ substantially from traditional investment vehicles such as mutual funds. The funds with watermarks significantly outperform the funds without watermarks. The average hedge fund returns are related positively to incentive fees, the size of the fund, and the lockup period. Hedge funds...