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When Does a Mutual Fund's Trade Reveal its Skill?

Author

Listed:
  • Zhi Da
  • Pengjie Gao
  • Ravi Jagannathan

Abstract

We conjecture that a mutual fund manager with superior stock selection ability is more likely to benefit from trading in stocks affected by information-events. Taking the probability of informed trading (PIN, Easley, Kiefer, O'Hara, and Paperman, 1996) to measure the amount of informed trading in a stock, and inferring mutual fund trades from a large sample of mutual fund holdings, we provide empirical support for the conjecture. Funds trading high-PIN stocks exhibit superior performance on average, and superior performance that is more likely to persist. The findings are not due to price momentum or the higher returns earned by high-PIN stocks on average. Conclusions remain the same after testing for alternative measures for the amount of informed trading. Decomposing a fund's stock selection ability into "informed trading" and "liquidity provision" adds further insight into fund's underlying strengths. Impatient informed trading is a significant source of alpha for funds trading high-PIN stocks, while liquidity provision is more important as a source of alpha for funds trading low-PIN stocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhi Da & Pengjie Gao & Ravi Jagannathan, 2007. "When Does a Mutual Fund's Trade Reveal its Skill?," NBER Working Papers 13625, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13625
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • 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

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