IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/por/fepwps/533.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Analysis of European Equity Funds Preferences for Stock Characteristics

Author

Listed:
  • Carlos F. Alves

    () (Faculdade de Economia do Porto)

  • João Vaz Nunes

    () (Faculdade de Economia do Porto)

  • Ana Paula Serra

    () (Faculdade de Economia do Porto)

Abstract

We analyze the equity portfolio composition of investment funds of 15 European countries. We find that these institutions tend to prefer larger, more liquid, high dividend, low volatility stocks that belong to the main stock market indices. These results are consistent with previous studies that analyze institutional preferences for stock characteristics. These results are also consistent with theories of “prudent” behavior by institutions and are robust to factors such as funds holding a small number of stocks and funds with unusually large holdings relative to the number of outstanding shares of a single company. When we compare institutional preferences across sub-groups of funds, we find no relevant differences between the stock preferences of funds from Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain and those of funds from other countries; also, there seem to be no significant differences between funds with different investment styles and preferences before and during the recent financial crisis in Europe. We also find similar preferences for funds located in countries that adopted the Euro and funds from other countries. Additionally, we find that funds with long-term strategies are more conforming with “prudent” behavior than funds more focused on the short-term.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos F. Alves & João Vaz Nunes & Ana Paula Serra, 2014. "Analysis of European Equity Funds Preferences for Stock Characteristics," FEP Working Papers 533, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    • Handle: RePEc:por:fepwps:533
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/workingpapers/wp533.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Santis, Giorgio & Gerard, Bruno, 1997. "International Asset Pricing and Portfolio Diversification with Time-Varying Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 1881-1912, December.
    2. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharftstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1992. "Herd on the Street: Informational Inefficiencies in a Market with Short-Term Speculation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1461-1484, September.
    3. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1992. "The impact of institutional trading on stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 23-43, August.
    4. Paul A. Gompers & Andrew Metrick, 2001. "Institutional Investors and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(1), pages 229-259.
    5. Andreas Walter & Friedrich Moritz Weber, 2006. "Herding in the German Mutual Fund Industry," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 12(3), pages 375-406, June.
    6. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    7. Falkenstein, Eric G, 1996. "Preferences for Stock Characteristics as Revealed by Mutual Fund Portfolio Holdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 111-135, March.
    8. Del Guercio, Diane, 1996. "The distorting effect of the prudent-man laws on institutional equity investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 31-62, January.
    9. Benjamin M. Friedman, 1995. "Economic Implications of Changing Share Ownership," NBER Working Papers 5141, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Arif Khurshed & Stephen Lin & Mingzhu Wang, 2011. "Institutional block-holdings of UK firms: do corporate governance mechanisms matter?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 133-152.
    11. John R. Nofsinger & Richard W. Sias, 1999. "Herding and Feedback Trading by Institutional and Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2263-2295, December.
    12. Grauer, Robert R & Hakansson, Nils H, 1987. "Gains from International Diversification: 1968-85 Returns on Portfolios of Stocks and Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 721-739, July.
    13. Luis Ferruz Agudo & J. L. Sarto & L. Vicente, 2008. "Herding behaviour in Spanish equity funds," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(7), pages 573-576.
    14. Carlos Alves & Victor Mendes, 2010. "Mutual funds biased preference for the parent's stock: evidence and explanation," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(16), pages 1309-1320.
    15. Sam Wylie, 2005. "Fund Manager Herding: A Test of the Accuracy of Empirical Results Using U.K. Data," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 381-403, January.
    16. Levy, Haim & Sarnat, Marshall, 1970. "International Diversification of Investment Portfolios," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(4), pages 668-675, September.
    17. 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.
    18. French, Kenneth R & Poterba, James M, 1991. "Investor Diversification and International Equity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 222-226, May.
    19. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    20. Welch, Ivo, 1992. "Sequential Sales, Learning, and Cascades," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 695-732, June.
    21. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan & Wermers, Russ, 1995. "Momentum Investment Strategies, Portfolio Performance, and Herding: A Study of Mutual Fund Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1088-1105, December.
    22. Banz, Rolf W., 1981. "The relationship between return and market value of common stocks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 3-18, March.
    23. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mutual fund; institutional investors behaviour;

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:por:fepwps:533. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/fepuppt.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.