IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pacfin/v82y2023ics0927538x23002652.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The journey is the reward: A study of corporate site visits and mutual fund performance

Author

Listed:
  • Zhuang, Zhuang
  • Hong, Xin
  • Yao, Juan

Abstract

Institutional investors often visit corporate sites to conduct first-hand assessments of firms' business operations and management quality. We find that corporate site visits contribute significantly to mutual fund performance in China. Our results indicate that corporate site visiting is an important part of mutual funds' stock selection process. Fund managers utilize these visiting activities as a verification channel to affirm their selection of outperforming stocks. The impact on fund performance is stronger when funds are active, have more concentrated equity holdings or invest in small-cap stocks. Performance enhancement is more profound when mutual funds visit firms with high information disclosure quality, and when fund managers have an alumni connection with corporate executives.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhuang, Zhuang & Hong, Xin & Yao, Juan, 2023. "The journey is the reward: A study of corporate site visits and mutual fund performance," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pacfin:v:82:y:2023:i:c:s0927538x23002652
    DOI: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2023.102194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X23002652
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.pacfin.2023.102194?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lauren Cohen & Andrea Frazzini & Christopher Malloy, 2008. "The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(5), pages 951-979, October.
    2. Bing Han & Dongmin Kong & Shasha Liu, 2018. "Do Analysts Gain an Informational Advantage by Visiting Listed Companies?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 1843-1867, December.
    3. Qiang Cheng & Fei Du & Xin Wang & Yutao Wang, 2016. "Seeing is believing: analysts’ corporate site visits," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 1245-1286, December.
    4. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    5. Qiang Cheng & Fei Du & Brian Yutao Wang & Xin Wang, 2019. "Do Corporate Site Visits Impact Stock Prices?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(1), pages 359-388, March.
    6. Wu, Qinqin & Hao, Ying & Lu, Jing, 2018. "Air pollution, stock returns, and trading activities in China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 342-365.
    7. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    8. Jordan, Bradford D. & Li, Ang & Liu, Mark H., 2022. "Mutual fund preference for pure-play firms," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Jiang, Xuanyu & Yuan, Qingbo, 2018. "Institutional investors' corporate site visits and corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 148-168.
    10. David Solomon & Eugene Soltes, 2015. "What Are We Meeting For? The Consequences of Private Meetings with Investors," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(2), pages 325-355.
    11. David R. Gallagher & Adrian Looi & Matt Pinnuck, 2010. "Are active fund managers collectors of private information or fast interpreters of public information?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 50(3), pages 635-662, September.
    12. Chen, Hsiu-Lang & Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Wermers, Russ, 2000. "The Value of Active Mutual Fund Management: An Examination of the Stockholdings and Trades of Fund Managers," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(3), pages 343-368, September.
    13. Hui Guo & Buhui Qiu, 2016. "A Better Measure of Institutional Informed Trading," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(2), pages 815-850, June.
    14. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    15. Hyoseok (David) Hwang, 2019. "Informed Trading of Mutual Funds: Evidence from Fund‐Underwriter Relationships," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 311-338, March.
    16. Nilabhra Bhattacharya & Hemang Desai & Kumar Venkataraman, 2013. "Does Earnings Quality Affect Information Asymmetry? Evidence from Trading Costs," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 482-516, June.
    17. Quanxi Liang & Jiangshan Liao & Leng Ling, 2022. "Social interactions and mutual fund portfolios: the role of alumni networks in China," China Finance Review International, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(3), pages 433-450, January.
    18. Shasha Liu & Yunhao Dai & Dongmin Kong, 2017. "Does It Pay to Communicate with Firms? Evidence from Firm Site Visits of Mutual Funds," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5-6), pages 611-645, May.
    19. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 2001. "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(4), pages 811-841, August.
    20. Ying Duan & Edith S. Hotchkiss & Yawen Jiao, 2018. "Business Ties and Information Advantage: Evidence from Mutual Fund Trading," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(2), pages 866-897, June.
    21. Joshua M. Pollet & Mungo Wilson, 2008. "How Does Size Affect Mutual Fund Behavior?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2941-2969, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Yanan Li & Wenjun Wang, 2022. "Company visits and mutual fund performance: new evidence on managerial skills," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(6), pages 504-521, October.
    2. Jaspersen, Stefan & Limbach, Peter, 2020. "Screening Discrimination in Financial Markets: Evidence from CEO-Fund Manager Dyads," CFR Working Papers 17-02, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR), revised 2020.
    3. Bai, John Jianqiu & Tang, Yuehua & Wan, Chi & Yüksel, H. Zafer, 2022. "Fund manager skill in an era of globalization: Offshore concentration and fund performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 18-40.
    4. Gao, Meng & Huang, Jiekun, 2016. "Capitalizing on Capitol Hill: Informed trading by hedge fund managers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 521-545.
    5. Yang, Jun & Lu, Jing & Xiang, Cheng, 2020. "Do disclosures of selective access improve market information acquisition fairness? Evidence from company visits in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    6. Liu, Huan & Hou, Canran, 2023. "The impact of institutional investors' corporate site visits on corporate social responsibility," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    7. Jaspersen, Stefan, 2021. "Mutual Fund Bets on Market Power," CFR Working Papers 16-07, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR), revised 2021.
    8. Jaspersen, Stefan & Limbach, Peter, 2018. "Knowing Me, Knowing You? Similarity to the CEO and Fund Managers' Investment Decisions," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181501, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Xiaofeng Quan & Cheng Xiang & Donghui Li & Kelvin Jui Keng Tan, 2023. "To see is to believe: Corporate site visits and mutual fund herding," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 52(4), pages 711-740, December.
    10. Minhang Deng & Yunyi Wang & Gaoliang Tian & Bozhi Xu & Yuyan Tang, 2023. "Institutional investors' corporate site visits and resource extraction: Evidence from China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(5), pages 5211-5243, December.
    11. Yue Xu, 2021. "Spillovers of Senior Mutual Fund Managers’ Capital Raising Ability," CREATES Research Papers 2022-03, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    12. Broadstock, David & Chen, Xiaoqi, 2021. "Corporate site visits, private monitoring and fraud: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    13. Su, Fei & Feng, Xu & Tang, Songlian, 2021. "Do site visits mitigate corporate fraudulence? Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Lai, Shaojie & Li, Xiaorong & Liu, Shiang & Wang, Qing Sophie, 2022. "Institutional investors’ site visits and corporate employment decision-making," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3).
    15. Martin Rohleder & Dominik Schulte & Janik Syryca & Marco Wilkens, 2018. "Mutual Fund Stock†Picking Skill: New Evidence from Valuation†versus Liquidity†Motivated Trading," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(2), pages 309-347, June.
    16. Qi, Zhen & Chu, Chien-Chi & Zhou, Yixiao & Chen, Jian, 2022. "Corporate site visits and firm performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 598-608.
    17. Chang, Danting & Li, Feng, 2023. "Uncovering the information content in abnormal institutional visits," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PB).
    18. Wu, Wenxin & Zhang, Xuezhi & Zhou, Zixun, 2022. "Institutional investors' corporate site visits and pay-performance sensitivity," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    19. Xiaoxu Ling & Siyuan Yan & Louis T. W. Cheng, 2022. "Investor relations under short‐selling pressure: Evidence from strategic signaling by company site visits," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(7-8), pages 1145-1174, July.
    20. Guo, Yingwen & Li, Jingjing & Lin, Bingxuan, 2023. "Corporate site visit and tax avoidance: The effects of monitoring and tax knowledge dissemination," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mutual fund; Corporate site visits; Fund performance; Fund-holding;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services

    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:eee:pacfin:v:82:y:2023:i:c:s0927538x23002652. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/pacfin .

    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.