IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v84y2017icp123-134.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

It's all in the name: Mutual fund name changes after SEC Rule 35d-1

Author

Listed:
  • Espenlaub, Susanne
  • Haq, Imtiaz ul
  • Khurshed, Arif

Abstract

We study how investors respond to ‘superficial’ mutual-fund name changes that occur for no fundamental reasons. We find that such name changes remain widespread even after regulation to curb potentially misleading name changes (SEC Rule 35d-1). Superficial changes are more widespread than previously studied ‘misleading’ changes that are not accompanied by corresponding portfolio adjustments reflecting the investment style suggested by the new name. Superficial changes appear to be driven by managerial incentives. Investors react to superficial changes with increased fund flows but appear to gain no benefit through improved performance or lower fees. On the contrary, name-change funds underperform as a group. Our findings highlight inefficiencies in the mutual-fund market and hold important implications for the stakeholders involved.

Suggested Citation

  • Espenlaub, Susanne & Haq, Imtiaz ul & Khurshed, Arif, 2017. "It's all in the name: Mutual fund name changes after SEC Rule 35d-1," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 123-134.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:84:y:2017:i:c:p:123-134
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2017.07.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842661730167X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2017.07.008?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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    4. 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.
    5. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    6. Russ Wermers, 1999. "Mutual Fund Herding and the Impact on Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 581-622, April.
    7. Ivkovic, Zoran & Weisbenner, Scott, 2009. "Individual investor mutual fund flows," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 223-237, May.
    8. Michael J. Cooper & Huseyin Gulen & P. Raghavendra Rau, 2005. "Changing Names with Style: Mutual Fund Name Changes and Their Effects on Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2825-2858, December.
    9. Ronald T. Wilcox, 2003. "Bargain Hunting or Star Gazing? Investors' Preferences for Stock Mutual Funds," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(4), pages 645-664, October.
    10. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean & Lu Zheng, 2005. "Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Effects of Expenses on Mutual Fund Flows," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2095-2120, November.
    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. Ghoul, Sadok El & Karoui, Aymen, 2021. "What's in a (Green) Name? The Consequences of Greening Fund Names on Fund Flows, Turnover, and Performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    2. Bertrand Candelon & Jean-Baptiste Hasse & Quentin Lajaunie, 2021. "ESG-Washing in the Mutual Funds Industry? From Information Asymmetry to Regulation," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-23, November.
    3. Aymen Karoui & Sadok El Ghoul, 2022. "Fund names versus family names: Implications for mutual fund flows," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 509-531, August.
    4. Shi, Yang & Chen, Shu & Liu, Ruiming & Kang, Yankun, 2022. "Fund renaming and fund flows: Evidence from China's stock market crash in 2015," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).

    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. George J. Jiang & H. Zafer Yüksel, 2019. "Sentimental mutual fund flows," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 709-738, November.
    2. Lapanan, Nicha, 2018. "The investment behavior of socially responsible individual investors," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 214-226.
    3. 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.
    4. Omori, Kozo & Kitamura, Tomoki, 2023. "Investor response to Morningstar's ratings, category information, and alpha in the Japanese mutual fund market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Teodor Dyakov & Marno Verbeek, 2019. "Can Mutual Fund Investors Distinguish Good from Bad Managers?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 505-540, September.
    6. Cuthbertson, Keith & Nitzsche, Dirk & O'Sullivan, Niall, 2016. "A review of behavioural and management effects in mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 162-176.
    7. Ainulashikin Marzuki & Andrew C. Worthington, 2011. "Comparative fund flows for Malaysian Islamic and conventional domestic managed equity funds," Discussion Papers in Finance finance:201118, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Navone, Marco, 2012. "Reprint of Investors’ distraction and strategic repricing decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 2729-2741.
    12. Bailey, Warren & Kumar, Alok & Ng, David, 2010. "Behavioral Biases of Mutual Fund Investors," Working Papers 10-23, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    13. Kronlund, Mathias & Pool, Veronika K. & Sialm, Clemens & Stefanescu, Irina, 2021. "Out of sight no more? The effect of fee disclosures on 401(k) investment allocations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 644-668.
    14. Bailey, Warren & Kumar, Alok & Ng, David, 2011. "Behavioral biases of mutual fund investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 1-27, October.
    15. Dariusz Filip, 2021. "A Review of Main Strands on the Flow-Performance Relationship of Mutual Funds," Athens Journal of Business & Economics, Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), vol. 7(3), pages 245-256, July.
    16. Chen, Hsuan-Chi & Lai, Christine W., 2010. "Reputation stretching in mutual fund starts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 193-207, January.
    17. 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).
    18. Beggs, William & Hill-Kleespie, Austin & Liu, Yanguang, 2022. "Mutual fund tax implications when investment advisors manage tax-exempt separate accounts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    19. Sophie Xiaofei Kong & Dragon Yongjun Tang, 2008. "Unitary Boards And Mutual Fund Governance," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 31(3), pages 193-224, September.
    20. Yaping Xiao & Haishu Qiao & Ting Xie, 2019. "Open-End Funds for Sustainable Economic Growth in China: The Relationship between Load Fees, Performance, and Flows," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-27, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mutual funds; SEC Rule 35d-1; Name changes; Fund flows;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    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:jbfina:v:84:y:2017:i:c:p:123-134. 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/jbf .

    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.