The validity of the price marks placed on bonds for valuation purposes is important for a diverse group of stakeholders, including investors, mutual fund managers, dealers, pricing services, and financial regulators. We analyze the dispersion of monthend price marks simultaneously placed on...

This is the first study of corporate-bond mutual fund performance that examines detailed security-level holdings and returns. The new database allows us to decompose the costs and benefits of active management. In contrast to prior research on equity funds that shows evidence of stock-selection...

We study the dispersion of month-end valuations placed on identical corporate bonds by different mutual funds. Such dispersion is related to bond-specific characteristics associated with liquidity and market volatility. TRACE may have contributed to the general decline in dispersion over our...