IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecnote/v47y2018i1p5-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Performance of Market†Timing Strategies of Italian Mutual Fund Investors

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Borri
  • Alberto Cagnazzo

Abstract

In this paper, we show that simple buy†and†hold strategies over†perform market†timing strategies effectively used by Italian investors in equity mutual funds. We estimate returns from market†timing strategies using aggregate data on net flows for a large sample of equity mutual funds, available to Italian investors, that buy stocks in the following markets: Europe and the euro area, the United States and Emerging markets. In all cases, buy†and†hold over†performs market†timing with extra returns that go from 0.24 per cent per quarter (Europe and euro area) to 0.87 per cent per quarter (US market). These differences are not explained by differences in risk and risk exposure. Investors should re†consider their investment strategies and choose cheaper, in terms of fees and simpler, in terms of portfolio allocation, passive strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Borri & Alberto Cagnazzo, 2018. "The Performance of Market†Timing Strategies of Italian Mutual Fund Investors," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 47(1), pages 5-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecnote:v:47:y:2018:i:1:p:5-20
    DOI: 10.1111/ecno.12093
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecno.12093
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecno.12093?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ippolito, Richard A, 1992. "Consumer Reaction to Measures of Poor Quality: Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 45-70, April.
    2. Frazzini, Andrea & Lamont, Owen A., 2008. "Dumb money: Mutual fund flows and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 299-322, May.
    3. James B. Davies & Susanna Sandström & Anthony Shorrocks & Edward N. Wolff, 2011. "The Level and Distribution of Global Household Wealth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(551), pages 223-254, March.
    4. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    5. Robin Greenwood & Andrei Shleifer, 2014. "Expectations of Returns and Expected Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(3), pages 714-746.
    6. Michael W. Brandt, 1999. "Estimating Portfolio and Consumption Choice: A Conditional Euler Equations Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1609-1645, October.
    7. Campbell, John Y. & Viceira, Luis M., 2002. "Strategic Asset Allocation: Portfolio Choice for Long-Term Investors," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296942.
    8. Ferreira, Miguel A. & Keswani, Aneel & Miguel, Antonio F. & Ramos, Sofia B., 2012. "The flow-performance relationship around the world," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1759-1780.
    9. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    10. Erik R. Sirri & Peter Tufano, 1998. "Costly Search and Mutual Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1589-1622, October.
    11. Franklin Fant, L., 1999. "Investment behavior of mutual fund shareholders: The evidence from aggregate fund flows," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 391-402, November.
    12. repec:oup:rfinst:v:25:y::i:12:p:3457-3489 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Venanzi, Daniela, 2016. "The performance of the Italian mutual funds: Does the metric matter?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 406-421.
    14. Gallant, A. Ronald & Hansen, Lars Peter & Tauchen, George, 1990. "Using conditional moments of asset payoffs to infer the volatility of intertemporal marginal rates of substitution," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 141-179.
    15. Friesen, Geoffrey C. & Sapp, Travis R.A., 2007. "Mutual fund flows and investor returns: An empirical examination of fund investor timing ability," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2796-2816, September.
    16. Dong Lou, 2012. "A Flow-Based Explanation for Return Predictability," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(12), pages 3457-3489.
    17. Ben-Rephael, Azi & Kandel, Shmuel & Wohl, Avi, 2012. "Measuring investor sentiment with mutual fund flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 363-382.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cagnazzo, Alberto, 2022. "Market-timing performance of mutual fund investors in Emerging Markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 378-394.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rakowski, David & Yamani, Ehab, 2021. "Endogeneity in the mutual fund flow–performance relationship: An instrumental variables solution," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 247-271.
    2. Cagnazzo, Alberto, 2022. "Market-timing performance of mutual fund investors in Emerging Markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 378-394.
    3. Servaes, Henri & Sigurdsson, Kari, 2022. "The Costs and Benefits of Performance Fees in Mutual Funds," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    4. Bradley Jones, 2016. "Institutionalizing Countercyclical Investment: A Framework for Long-term Asset Owners," IMF Working Papers 2016/038, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Yamani, Ehab, 2023. "The informational role of fund flow in the profitable predictability of mutual funds," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    6. Chalmers, John & Kaul, Aditya & Phillips, Blake, 2013. "The wisdom of crowds: Mutual fund investors’ aggregate asset allocation decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3318-3333.
    7. Luis Vicente & Cristina Ortiz & Laura Andreu, 2011. "Is the Average Investor Smarter than the Average Euro?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 143-161, December.
    8. George J. Jiang & H. Zafer Yüksel, 2019. "Sentimental mutual fund flows," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 709-738, November.
    9. Carlos Alves & Victor Mendes, 2011. "Does performance explain mutual fund flows in small markets? The case of Portugal," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 10(2), pages 129-147, August.
    10. Casavecchia, Lorenzo, 2016. "Fund managers' herding and the sensitivity of fund flows to past performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 205-221.
    11. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    12. Kozo Omori & Tomoki Kitamura, 2021. "Managers’ skills and fund flows in the Japanese mutual fund market," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 39(4), pages 675-696, November.
    13. Alexander Eisele & Tamara Nefedova & Gianpaolo Parise, 2015. "Are Star Funds Really Shining? Cross-trading And Performance Shifting In Mutual Fund Families," Post-Print hal-01458357, HAL.
    14. Clemens Sialm & Laura T. Starks & Hanjiang Zhang, 2015. "Defined Contribution Pension Plans: Sticky or Discerning Money?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 805-838, April.
    15. Khaled Obaid & Kuntara Pukthuanthong, 2021. "Informativeness of mutual fund advertisements: Does advertising communicate fund quality to investors?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 203-236, March.
    16. Peress, Joel & Schmidt, Daniel, 2021. "Noise traders incarnate: Describing a realistic noise trading process," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    17. Martí Ballester, Carmen Pilar, 2013. "Determinants of equity pension plan flows," Economics Discussion Papers 2013-15, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. Martin Rohleder & Dominik Schulte & Marco Wilkens, 2017. "Management of flow risk in mutual funds," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 31-56, January.
    19. Jank, Stephan, 2012. "Mutual fund flows, expected returns, and the real economy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 3060-3070.
    20. Klinkowska, Olga & Zhao, Yuan, 2023. "Fund flows and performance: New evidence from retail and institutional SRI mutual funds," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecnote:v:47:y:2018:i:1:p:5-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0391-5026 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.