Purpose Focusing on the Brazilian equity mutual fund industry, this study analyzes whether including the investor sentiment index in asset pricing models is important for explaining fund alpha. Design/methodology/approach The investor sentiment index and risk factors in the Fama and French...

When evaluating a manager, investors should attempt to separate luck from skill. We find a mutual fund manager's demonstrated skill better predicts future performance than past fund performance. Despite that fact, investors tend to buy the funds with the best past performance, not the funds...

We examine why mutual funds appear to underperform hedge funds. Utilizing a unique panel of mutual fund contracts changes, we explore several possible channels, including: alternative investment practices (e.g., short sales and leverage), performance-based compensation, and the ability to...

Just over 20 years have passed since the publication of Carhart's landmark 1997 study on mutual funds. Its conclusion—that the data did “not support the existence of skilled or informed mutual fund portfolio managers”—was the capstone of an academic literature beginning with Jensen...

The commodity ETF market has reached an equilibrium where most precious metal ETFs are backed with physical assets, while other commodity ETFs tend to be backed with futures contracts. In this study, we consider the impact these two different approaches have on the built-in arbitrage mechanism...