In this thesis we have studied the relationship between mutual fund size and performance by studying 91 Swedish mutual funds during a six year period (2006-2011). Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between fund size and management fees and fund size and persistence in performance. The fund sample has been divided into five subgroups in order to compare and analyze funds with different fund sizes for the whole six-year period as well as two three-year sub periods. Our results are based on regressions and significance tests and for all the five subgroups and over the whole time period our results indicate that there is no significant relationship between fund size and fund performance that is robust over time. Our findings also show that there is no persistence in performance for any of the size-based fund groups which helps us to draw the conclusion that past performance is not a good measure for predicting future performance regardless of the size of the funds. The results also indicate that mutual funds with a larger asset base tend to have lower management fees than smaller funds.

Investment of mutual fund has always been popular to the common investor. No matter investing at Systematic Investment Plan or One-time Investment, choosing a ¡§good¡¨ mutual fund is expected for every investor. However, how to find a good one among a large number of funds? In the past reports or theses, there are many reasons of influencing mutual fund performance, which include fund¡¦s size among others. The common sense said that ¡§if you want to invest in mutual fund, you should choose the larger size ¡¨ Is that true? Through the past reports we can find out different opinions. This study mainly research into the relationship between performance and size of domestic open-ended mutual funds. Expect to give a simpler data for reference and lower the risk before general investors put money into funds. The logic of Spearman's Rank Correlation coefficient would be applied as the statistical inference in this study, and the domestic open-ended equity fund, balanced fund, and quasi-money market fund will be used as the observed samples. Monthly performance and size is the observed unit of time in this research period from March 2001 to February 2010. Thus via this mode will know whether the correlation between fund¡¦s performance and size is positive, negative or there is no correlation. The conclusions of this study are presented as follows: 1. There is a low positive correlation between performance and size for equity fund and quasi-money market fund. But the balanced fund does not show any correlation for these two variables. 2. Moreover, the study shows there is better performance for investing in over 4 billion NT asset of equity fund in a short term period. But the result of balanced fund and quasi-money market fund can¡¦t highlight the optimal size in a short term period. 3. From the long term point of view, the optimal interval of size for equity and balanced fund is between 1 billion and 2 billion. And the optimal size to quasi-money market fund is over 40 billion.

<p><strong>Bakgrund:</strong> Fonder är en sparform som har utvecklats och blivit en av de mest populära och framgångsrika placeringsformerna på marknaden. Många företag väljer därför, efter en högkonjunktur följd av möjlighet till reservsparande, att investera på fondmarknaden för att kunna öka sitt kapital under kommande lågkonjunktur. Att välja en stor och trögrörlig eller en liten och snabbfotat fond kan vara av avgörande karaktär när man ska se till utvecklingen.</p><p><strong>Problemformulering:</strong> Har fondstorleken betydelse vid placering i fonder under lågkonjunktur?</p><p><strong>Syfte:</strong> Klargöra huruvida fondstorleken har betydelse för avkastningen vid placering i svenska aktiefonder under lågkonjunktur.</p><p><strong>Metod:</strong> Studien använder sig av metodtriangulering där ett kvantitativt upplägg kombineras med ett kvalitativt inslag i form av en intervju. En deduktiv ansats anammas. Urvalet har valts ut genom ett bekvämlighetsurval och datainsamling har skett i form av sekundärdata från Morningstar, Riksbanken samt Affärsvärlden. Med den informationen har uppsatsens empiri och resultat grundlagts och kunnat kopplas till teorier, tidigare forskning samt allmän uppfattning om fonder i analysen.</p><p><strong>Slutsats:</strong> Undersökningen visar att stora fonder, tätt följt av medelstora fonder, är den bästa investeringen under lågkonjunktur. Små fonder är mer snabbrörliga, har en högre standardavvikelse och risk men det innebär inte generellt att det utmynnar i en högre avkastning.</p> / <p><strong>Background:</strong> Fund saving is nowadays a very popular investment strategy when it comes to putting money aside on the market. After a big economic boom, with the potential of gathering up assets, companies choose  to invest in the fund market with the possibility to increase their wealth when a recession is up and coming. When it comes to how well the fund is developing, one needs to make a critical decision and choose either a big and sluggish one or a small and swift-footed one.</p><p><strong>Problem formulation:</strong> Does fund size matter when investing in funds during recession?</p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong> Determine whether fund size has an impact on return rate when investing in Swedish mutual funds during recession.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> Different types of methods will be used throughout the study to ensure good quality and enough quantity. Mainly quantitative layout (data gathering from the Swedish State Bank, Morningstar and Affärsvärlden) featuring a qualitative interview and a deductive approach. With established empirics and elicited results, the study has been able to connect the theories used, the previous research in the field and the common view of funds among society to its analysis.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Theory suggests that large funds, closely followed by mediumsized funds are the best investment during recessions. Small funds are more fastmoving, has a higher standard deviation and risk but it does not, generally, out-flow into a higher return.</p>

Bakgrund: Fonder är en sparform som har utvecklats och blivit en av de mest populära och framgångsrika placeringsformerna på marknaden. Många företag väljer därför, efter en högkonjunktur följd av möjlighet till reservsparande, att investera på fondmarknaden för att kunna öka sitt kapital under kommande lågkonjunktur. Att välja en stor och trögrörlig eller en liten och snabbfotat fond kan vara av avgörande karaktär när man ska se till utvecklingen. Problemformulering: Har fondstorleken betydelse vid placering i fonder under lågkonjunktur? Syfte: Klargöra huruvida fondstorleken har betydelse för avkastningen vid placering i svenska aktiefonder under lågkonjunktur. Metod: Studien använder sig av metodtriangulering där ett kvantitativt upplägg kombineras med ett kvalitativt inslag i form av en intervju. En deduktiv ansats anammas. Urvalet har valts ut genom ett bekvämlighetsurval och datainsamling har skett i form av sekundärdata från Morningstar, Riksbanken samt Affärsvärlden. Med den informationen har uppsatsens empiri och resultat grundlagts och kunnat kopplas till teorier, tidigare forskning samt allmän uppfattning om fonder i analysen. Slutsats: Undersökningen visar att stora fonder, tätt följt av medelstora fonder, är den bästa investeringen under lågkonjunktur. Små fonder är mer snabbrörliga, har en högre standardavvikelse och risk men det innebär inte generellt att det utmynnar i en högre avkastning. / Background: Fund saving is nowadays a very popular investment strategy when it comes to putting money aside on the market. After a big economic boom, with the potential of gathering up assets, companies choose  to invest in the fund market with the possibility to increase their wealth when a recession is up and coming. When it comes to how well the fund is developing, one needs to make a critical decision and choose either a big and sluggish one or a small and swift-footed one. Problem formulation: Does fund size matter when investing in funds during recession? Purpose: Determine whether fund size has an impact on return rate when investing in Swedish mutual funds during recession. Method: Different types of methods will be used throughout the study to ensure good quality and enough quantity. Mainly quantitative layout (data gathering from the Swedish State Bank, Morningstar and Affärsvärlden) featuring a qualitative interview and a deductive approach. With established empirics and elicited results, the study has been able to connect the theories used, the previous research in the field and the common view of funds among society to its analysis. Conclusion: Theory suggests that large funds, closely followed by mediumsized funds are the best investment during recessions. Small funds are more fastmoving, has a higher standard deviation and risk but it does not, generally, out-flow into a higher return.

Using data of first time fund in venture capital in United States from 1995 to 2015, I explore characteristics of the funds in relation to the fund performances. Three groups of characteristics that examined are fund characteristics, manager characteristics and limited partners’ characteristics. The paper also incorporates the time effects to show if market cycles have influences in these relationships. Some of the critical findings include that fund sizes have essentially zero impact on the fund return. In manager characteristics, it is very helpful to have a lead manager with MBA or equivalent degree. For limited partners, it is useful to have school endowments as limited partners which could influence the funds’ return positively. Both general partners and limited partners could learn from this paper and be more mindful of certain factor when investing in first time fund.

Individuals who rely on mutual funds to accumulate wealth need advice on how best to select them (Ciccotello&Grant, 1996). The purpose of the study is to gain insight whether fund size and boutique or institutional fund structure of unit trusts affects returns. It expands the body of knowledge on investment performance factors and equips investors with a tool to make informed decisions when contemplating various fund manager offerings.Data was collected from the database of the Association for Savings and Investment (ASISA) for South African general equity unit trust returns and fund size information covering a period of 44 quarters from March 2001 to December 2011. Domestic general equity unit trusts were analysed during the period under review. A regression analysis was run to test for fund size as an indicator of investment performance. A parallel study was conducted to test whether boutique funds outperform institutional funds.The results indicate that fund size has no influence on fund performance. The findings also show that there is no significant difference between the performance of boutique style unit trust funds and institutional unit trust funds. These findings contradict the findings of previous research by (Fama, 1972); (Chen, Hong, Huang, &Kubik, 2004; Ciccotello&Grant, 1996; Droms&Walker, 1996) who found fund size, either positively or negatively have an influence on mutual fund returns while (Gallagher&Martin, 2005) and Schönfeld (2009) concluded that boutique funds offer better returns compared to institutional funds. Investors would be advised to carry out a fund by fund analysis to identify the optimal domestic unit trust investment fund when investing as opposed to an aggregated study. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Previous research has analyzed the relationship of several fund characteristics to fund return, whether a higher fund fee results in a higher fund and if fund characteristics such as active management style, fund risk and fund size are contributing factors to a higher fund return. As previous empirical research has reported mixed results and has mainly studied the American fund market. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether there was a statical and significant relationship between the fund's return, annual fee, risk, size and management style for equity funds in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark over a five and ten-year period. The study is based on a quantitative method with a deductive approach which involves the collection of numeric and secondary data from Morningstar's database. The data has then been processed in a correlation- and regression analysis to analyze the relationship between fund return and the fund characteristics. Based on the results the study found a statistically significant relationship between the fund's return and funds risk for five years, the fund's size,the annual fee for five and ten years. The fund's risk for five years was insignificant as was the management style for five and ten years.