Impact of economic and market factors on the market liquidity timing ability of mutual fund managers in Turkey

Purpose - The authors examine whether Turkish fund managers employ liquidity timing along with market return timing, and if additional economic and market factors could affect their timing abilities, to help explain the contradictory results in literature vis-a-vis market timing ability. Design/methodology/approach - The authors apply panel data analyses, with interaction terms and incorporating structural breaks, to monthly data for 96 out of 131 Turkish variable mutual funds which have available data for the sample period of 2011–2018. The authors employ the Amihud (2002) illiquidity measure to study market liquidity timing ability along with how additional economic and market factors affect this ability. Findings - The authors find liquidity timing to be the performance enhancing method employed by Turkish variable fund managers in conjunction with market timing and that evidence for market timing may depend on whether structural breaks, that may be present in returns, are incorporated in the analysis. The authors also find that economic, technology and market-related factors affect timing abilities of fund managers. Research limitations/implications - Conclusions are for Turkey, for the sample period studied, and for the control factors selected based on literature. Practical implications - It is important to understand the role of market liquidity in making investment decisions and the paper contributes toward an understanding of how managers design their timing strategies in order to enhance portfolio performance, as well as the impact of additional factors on their ability to time market returns and liquidity. This is also important for evaluating fund managers' performance in terms of contribution to portfolio value. Originality/value - To the authors knowledge this is the first study on Turkish markets to employ liquidity timing in the context of panel data analyses using interaction terms, as well as structural breaks, to distinguish the extent of liquidity timing from return timing, while incorporating the effect of additional factors on timing ability.