We investigate hedge fund firms' unobserved performance (UP), measured as the risk-adjusted 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% p.a....

This paper studies the “confidential holdings” of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where the quarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a significant delay through amendments to the Form 13F. Our evidence supports hiding private information as the dominant motive for...

Hedge funds are dynamic, versatile, opaque, and, according to BarclayHedge, their assets under management have nearly doubled from $2.6 trillion in 2015 to $4.9 trillion in 2021. In the recent decade, whether hedge funds have delivered superior performance is in debate. Researchers conclude...

This paper studies the "confidential holdings" of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where the quarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a delay through amendments to the Form 13F and are usually excluded from the standard databases. Evidence supports private information as...

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%...

This paper studies the “confidential holdings” of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where the quarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a delay through amendments to the Form 13F and are usually excluded from the standard databases. Funds managing large risky portfolios...

This paper is a first study to formally analyze the biases related to self-reporting in the hedge funds databases by matching the quarterly equity holdings of a complete list of 13F-filing hedge fund companies to the union of five major commercial databases of self-reporting hedge funds between...