IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc12/62015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Portfolio Complexity and Herd Behavior: Evidence from the German Mutual Fund Market

Author

Listed:
  • Franck, Alexander
  • Walter, Andreas

Abstract

We examine the herd behavior among equity funds in Germany based on a large sample of funds from 2000 to 2009. We show that a large portion of the detected herding can be explained by identical trading among funds of the same investment company. However, we also find statistically significant stock herding among funds belonging to different fund families. In contrast to existing herding studies which analyze herd behavior within a purely national stock environment, we investigate mutual fund herding in international stocks. We contribute to the literature by analyzing the impact of portfolio complexity on herd behavior. We find the most pronounced levels of herding for funds choosing their portfolio stocks from a broad, international and therefore complex investment universe. Further, we approximate a fund s portfolio complexity by its size and find high levels of herding among the biggest funds. To analyze the herd behavior of individual funds, we introduce a new and intuitive way to assign levels of herding to funds according to their trading activity within a given period. We show that managers differentiate between buy-herding and sell-herding and that individual funds exhibit similar herding intensities within a given and a succeeding period.

Suggested Citation

  • Franck, Alexander & Walter, Andreas, 2012. "Portfolio Complexity and Herd Behavior: Evidence from the German Mutual Fund Market," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62015, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc12:62015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/62015/1/VfS_2012_pid_457.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Sushil Bikhchandani & Sunil Sharma, 2001. "Herd Behavior in Financial Markets," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 47(3), pages 1-1.
    3. Richard W. Sias, 2004. "Institutional Herding," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 165-206.
    4. Judith Chevalier & Glenn Ellison, 1999. "Career Concerns of Mutual Fund Managers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 389-432.
    5. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    6. 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.
    7. Daniel Dorn & Gur Huberman & Paul Sengmueller, 2008. "Correlated Trading and Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 885-920, April.
    8. Svitlana Voronkova & Martin T. Bohl, 2005. "Institutional Traders’ Behavior in an Emerging Stock Market: Empirical Evidence on Polish Pension Fund Investors," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7‐8), pages 1537-1560, September.
    9. Clement, Michael B., 1999. "Analyst forecast accuracy: Do ability, resources, and portfolio complexity matter?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 285-303, July.
    10. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik & Amit Solomon, 2000. "Security Analysts' Career Concerns and Herding of Earnings Forecasts," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(1), pages 121-144, Spring.
    11. Hirshleifer, David & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Titman, Sheridan, 1994. "Security Analysis and Trading Patterns When Some Investors Receive Information before Others," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1665-1698, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    14. Stephanie Kremer & Dieter Nautz, 2011. "Short-Term Herding of Institutional Traders: New Evidence from the German Stock Market," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2011-015, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    15. 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.
    16. Malkiel, Burton G, 1995. "Returns from Investing in Equity Mutual Funds 1971 to 1991," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 549-572, June.
    17. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2008. "All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 785-818, April.
    18. 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.
    19. Svitlana Voronkova & Martin T. Bohl, 2005. "Institutional Traders' Behavior in an Emerging Stock Market: Empirical Evidence on Polish Pension Fund Investors," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7-8), pages 1537-1560.
    20. 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.
    21. Jacob, John & Lys, Thomas Z. & Neale, Margaret A., 1999. "Expertise in forecasting performance of security analysts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 51-82, November.
    22. Bolliger, Guido, 2004. "The characteristics of individual analysts' forecasts in Europe," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 2283-2309, September.
    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. Alexander Franck & Andreas Walter & Johannes Witt, 2013. "Momentum strategies of German mutual funds," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 27(3), pages 307-332, September.
    2. Alexander Franck & Alexander Kerl, 2014. "The impact of fund characteristics on the use of analyst forecasts," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 15(2), pages 92-109, April.

    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. Andrikopoulos, Panagiotis & Gebka, Bartosz & Kallinterakis, Vasileios, 2021. "Regulatory mood-congruence and herding: Evidence from cannabis stocks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 842-864.
    2. Jiao, Yawen & Ye, Pengfei, 2014. "Mutual fund herding in response to hedge fund herding and the impacts on stock prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 131-148.
    3. Kremer, Stephanie & Nautz, Dieter, 2013. "Causes and consequences of short-term institutional herding," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1676-1686.
    4. Pegah Dehghani & Ros Zam Zam Sapian, 2014. "Sectoral herding behavior in the aftermarket of Malaysian IPOs," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 227-246, July.
    5. Guney, Yilmaz & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Komba, Gabriel, 2017. "Herding in frontier markets: Evidence from African stock exchanges," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 152-175.
    6. I. Koetsier & J.A. Bikker, 2018. "Herding behavior of Dutch pension funds in asset class investments," Working Papers 18-04, Utrecht School of Economics.
    7. Marius Popescu & Zhaojin Xu, 2018. "Mutual fund herding and reputational concerns," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 42(3), pages 550-565, July.
    8. Choi, Nicole & Skiba, Hilla, 2015. "Institutional herding in international markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 246-259.
    9. Andrikopoulos, Panagiotis & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Leite Ferreira, Mario Pedro & Verousis, Thanos, 2017. "Intraday herding on a cross-border exchange," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 25-36.
    10. Puput Tri Komalasari & Marwan Asri & Bernardinus M. Purwanto & Bowo Setiyono, 2022. "Herding behaviour in the capital market: What do we know and what is next?," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 745-787, September.
    11. I. Koetsier & J.A. Bikker, 2017. "Herding behaviour of Dutch pension funds in sovereign bond investments," Working Papers 17-15, Utrecht School of Economics.
    12. Gavriilidis, Konstantinos & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Ferreira, Mario Pedro Leite, 2013. "Institutional industry herding: Intentional or spurious?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 192-214.
    13. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Phil Holmes & Vasileios Kallinterakis & M P Leite Ferreira, 2013. "Herding in a Concentrated Market: a Question of Intent," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 19(3), pages 497-520, June.
    15. Laura Andreu & Cristina Ortiz & José Sarto, 2014. "Herding in the strategic allocations of Spanish pension plan managers," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 38(4), pages 658-671, October.
    16. Goodfellow, Christiane & Bohl, Martin T. & Gebka, Bartosz, 2009. "Together we invest? Individual and institutional investors' trading behaviour in Poland," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 212-221, September.
    17. Philippas, Nikolaos & Economou, Fotini & Babalos, Vassilios & Kostakis, Alexandros, 2013. "Herding behavior in REITs: Novel tests and the role of financial crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 166-174.
    18. Thomas, Ashok & Spataro, Luca & Mathew, Nanditha, 2014. "Pension funds and stock market volatility: An empirical analysis of OECD countries," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 92-103.
    19. Claudio Raddatz & Sergio Schmukler, 2013. "Deconstructing Herding: Evidence from Pension Fund Investment Behavior," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 43(1), pages 99-126, February.
    20. Moatemri Ouarda & Abdelfatteh El Bouri & Olivero Bernard, 2013. "Herding Behavior under Markets Condition: Empirical Evidence on the European Financial Markets," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 3(1), pages 214-228.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • 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:zbw:vfsc12:62015. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.html .

    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.