IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finmar/v77y2026ics1386418125000497.html

Extreme fund performance and investor divergence in beliefs about manager skill

Author

Listed:
  • Zhan, Yaosong
  • Zhang, Wenwen
  • Liu, Zhenya

Abstract

Extreme fund performance creates divergent investor opinions about manager skill. We develop a model predicting that this disagreement follows a U-shaped pattern, increasing with both exceptionally good and poor performance. Using a flow-based divergence index and Chinese mutual fund data, we empirically confirm this relationship. We argue that this pattern is driven by retail investors, whose tendency to focus on extreme outcomes amplifies their disagreement. Higher divergence predicts weaker future performance persistence but also helps investors improve their realized returns by allowing them to exit funds before subsequent downturns.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhan, Yaosong & Zhang, Wenwen & Liu, Zhenya, 2026. "Extreme fund performance and investor divergence in beliefs about manager skill," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finmar:v:77:y:2026:i:c:s1386418125000497
    DOI: 10.1016/j.finmar.2025.101009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386418125000497
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.finmar.2025.101009?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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    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:finmar:v:77:y:2026:i:c:s1386418125000497. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/finmar .

    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.