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Thesis advisor: Ronnie Sadka / In the first essay of this dissertation, I study the impact that hedge fund manager connections have on investment ideas. I find that hedge fund managers who previously worked at the same prior hedge fund invest more similarly, hold more overlapping portfolios, and trade and overweight the same stocks relative to managers who do not share an employment connection. Overall, these results support theoretical prediction that networked managers share ideas that leads to price discovery for commonly held stocks. The second essay analyzes the role of ETFs in mutual fund families and is joint work with Caitlin Dannhauser. We study mutual fund and ETF twins - index funds from the same family that follow the same benchmark. We find that mutual fund twins have lower overall tax burdens while ETF twins have higher long-term yields and unrealized capital gains, but are compensated with lower expense ratios. Fund families benefit because twin offerings generate higher flows than their non-twin peers. These results support previous research that mutual fund families use diversification and subsidization to benefit the overall family. In the third essay, I study the use of latent factors in explaining hedge fund returns. Using an alternative latent factor estimator, asymptotic principal components (APC), I find explains more of the common variation of hedge fund returns on average and does so with greater efficiency than that found in the literature. I also identify an increase in the common variation across hedge fund excess return in the time-series via the extracted latent factors. My results suggest an impetus for future researchers to employ APC factors when characterizing hedge fund performance. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

<p>Previous studies in mutual funds were focused mainly on the US market. The general belief is thatmutual funds in average cannot outperform the market. We decided to test this theory in the lessstudied markets of equity funds in Sweden and Germany. Another controversial point is fees inmutual funds. Therefore we will give an overview of fees in both markets, and analyze the relationbetween fees and performance.This study analyzes the Swedish and the German mutual funds market. For the German market,funds with domicile in Germany and abroad are analyzed separately in order to examine possibledifferences between funds with a domestic domicile, and funds domiciled abroad.1285 funds performances covering period of 2000-2008 were calculated using Jensen’s Alphameasure. The results showed that all funds have on average negative alphas. Approximately 20% offunds in the German market and 12% of the funds in the Swedish market have significantlynegative performance.Regarding fees, there is only a small difference between funds in the German and the Swedishmarket in general, while the difference between funds domiciled in Germany and Luxembourg wassignificantly bigger.Our analysis of the relation between fees and performance showed no significant relationship.</p>

Previous studies in mutual funds were focused mainly on the US market. The general belief is thatmutual funds in average cannot outperform the market. We decided to test this theory in the lessstudied markets of equity funds in Sweden and Germany. Another controversial point is fees inmutual funds. Therefore we will give an overview of fees in both markets, and analyze the relationbetween fees and performance.This study analyzes the Swedish and the German mutual funds market. For the German market,funds with domicile in Germany and abroad are analyzed separately in order to examine possibledifferences between funds with a domestic domicile, and funds domiciled abroad.1285 funds performances covering period of 2000-2008 were calculated using Jensen’s Alphameasure. The results showed that all funds have on average negative alphas. Approximately 20% offunds in the German market and 12% of the funds in the Swedish market have significantlynegative performance.Regarding fees, there is only a small difference between funds in the German and the Swedishmarket in general, while the difference between funds domiciled in Germany and Luxembourg wassignificantly bigger.Our analysis of the relation between fees and performance showed no significant relationship.

In recent years, the financial service industry demonstrated substantial growth of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Apart from offering access to new and more specific investment opportunities, many ETFs enter direct competition with conventional, already existing Mutual Index Funds. With 22,1% growth of assets over the past 5 years, the European market by now accounts for 19% of the global ETF market, while at the same time we observe a decline of cash flows to Mutual Index Funds. Given the recent development, index investors are likely to face a choice between ETFs and Mutual Index Funds offering the same service. The purpose of this study is to analyze those two similar investment instruments towards the quality of achieving their objective, which is to deliver a performance as close as possible to the respective benchmarks'. The analysis will be performed for the European market, i.e. we include only Index Funds that track European indices. This study is guided by objectivism and positivism as ontological and epistemological positions. We conduct a deductive research by reviewing and testing previous findings through the formulation of hypotheses that serve our purpose. For our analysis we gather quantitative data in the form of daily prices for 21 ETFs and 22 Mutual Index Funds, tracking 9 European indices. We further use a time frame of 7 years (2006-2012), which we analyze as a whole as well as divided into sub-periods as determined by different states of the European market. As a basis for the analysis we calculate return differences and different measures of tracking risk. Our results show that on average ETFs as well as Mutual Index Funds sufficiently replicate index performance with approximately the same level of tracking risk for both instruments. Furthermore, we see no significant impact of expected returns or index volatility on return difference. However, through examination of fees and tracking errors during recent economic turmoils, we show that ETFs first bear lower directly attributed costs and second are less affected by down markets than Mutual Funds.

Orientador: Bruno Martarello De Conti / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T08:55:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bastos_HenriqueGoncalves_M.pdf: 1980248 bytes, checksum: b41309facbe175243df3839a0b18cec1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: O objetivo desta dissertação é avaliar se os fundos fechados de previdência complementar atuam ou têm potencial para atuar na alocação de ativos em instrumentos de funding no Brasil. Em simultâneo, explora-se algumas das razões apontadas na literatura para explicar porque o país não dispõe de um sistema privado e autônomo capaz de financiar investimentos no longo prazo. Para investigar o assunto, são apresentados os principais elementos teóricos de uma economia monetária de produção que auxiliam na compreensão do tema, sobretudo o circuito finance-funding, proposto por Keynes, em contraposição à teoria convencional dos fundos emprestáveis, que coloca a poupança como elemento previamente necessário à realização do investimento. São consideradas também as questões pertinentes ao capitalismo globalizado sob dominância financeira, que identifica a importância dos investidores institucionais na determinação dos grandes movimentos de capitais, da exacerbação da preferência pela liquidez e do comportamento de curto prazo nos mercados secundários. Considerando a hipótese de que o financiamento ao investimento de longo prazo no Brasil não depende do fluxo prévio de poupança, mas da estratégia de alocação da riqueza dos agentes econômicos que atuam no mercado financeiro nacional, foram avaliados os fundos fechados de previdência complementar (fundos de pensão) para analisar sua pertinência / Abstract: This work aims to assess whether private pension funds acts or have the potential to act in asset allocation to funding instruments in Brazil. It also explores some of the reasons presented in the literature to explain why the country does not have a private and autonomous system able to finance long-term investments. To investigate this matter, the main theoretical elements of a monetary economy of production are employed to aid in the understanding of the subject, especially the finance funding circuit, as proposed by Keynes, in contrast to the loanable funds conventional theory, which puts the prior savings argument as a crucial need to investment. The issues related to global capitalism under financial dominance, which identifies the importance of institutional investors in determining the large movements of capital, the exacerbation of the liquidity preference and the short-term behavior in secondary markets, are also considered. Pension funds market was observed to test the relevance of the assumption that financing of long-term investment in Brazil does not depend on the flow of prior savings, but on the wealth allocation strategy of economic agents operating in the domestic financial market / Mestrado / Teoria Economica / Mestre em Ciências Econômicas

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The 2007–2009 financial crisis led to a decrease in consumer and investor confidence worldwide (SARB, 2008:2). Along with the weakened business sentiment and consumer demand, tightened funding conditions in financial markets, increased inflationary pressures, and declining global manufacturing activities, the world economic recession that followed the collapse of the world financial sector led to an estimated wealth destruction of approximately US$50 trillion (SARB, 2008:2; Aisen & Franken, 2010:3; Karunanayake et al., 2010). Apart from this estimate, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also projected that the global bank balance sheets in advanced countries suffered losses of approximately US$4 trillion during the period 2009–2010 (Aisen & Franken, 2010:3). As a result, investors have become more risk-adverse (Guiso et al., 2013:1), and the consequences of the financial crisis, made insurable profitable investment decisions extremely difficult as market volatility tends to increase during crises periods (Karunanayake et al., 2010; Schwert, 1989:83). With the financial environment in distress, some fund managers consider equities as the preferred asset class to protect the purchasing power of their clients (Ivan, 2013). However, the studies of Ennis and Sebastian (2003) and Nicholas (2004) found evidence that hedge funds will outperform equity markets during a downswing in financial markets. In addition, hedge funds are considered market-neutral due to these investment funds’ unrestricted investment flexibility and more efficient market timing abilities (Ennis & Sebastian, 2003). Hedge funds are also considered to be more unconventional assets for improving portfolio diversification (Lamm, 1999:87), where the variation of investment strategies available in a hedge fund has the ability to satisfy investors with several different risk preferences (Shin, 2012). Still, a number of previous studies have debated conflicting evidence regarding the performance of hedge funds and the persistence in outperforming other markets. This led to the objective of this study; to evaluate the risk-adjusted performance of US and EU hedge funds compared to the associated world equity markets over the 2007–2009 financial crisis. The evidence from this study confirmed the dominance of hedge funds over the CAC 40, DAX, S&P 500 and Dow Jones, from 2004 to 2011, emphasising that the performance of the US and EU hedge funds would overshadow a normal buy-and-hold strategy on the world equity markets under investigation. Overall, the Sharpe-, Sortino-, Jensen’s alpha-, Treynor- and Calmar ratios illustrated that US hedge funds outperformed both EU hedge funds and the associated equity markets over this period. The presence of non-normality among the return distributions led to the use of the Omega ratio as the proper benchmark, which also confirmed the outperformance of US hedge funds over EU hedge funds and associated world equity markets. / MCom (Risk Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

The 2007–2009 financial crisis led to a decrease in consumer and investor confidence worldwide (SARB, 2008:2). Along with the weakened business sentiment and consumer demand, tightened funding conditions in financial markets, increased inflationary pressures, and declining global manufacturing activities, the world economic recession that followed the collapse of the world financial sector led to an estimated wealth destruction of approximately US$50 trillion (SARB, 2008:2; Aisen & Franken, 2010:3; Karunanayake et al., 2010). Apart from this estimate, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also projected that the global bank balance sheets in advanced countries suffered losses of approximately US$4 trillion during the period 2009–2010 (Aisen & Franken, 2010:3). As a result, investors have become more risk-adverse (Guiso et al., 2013:1), and the consequences of the financial crisis, made insurable profitable investment decisions extremely difficult as market volatility tends to increase during crises periods (Karunanayake et al., 2010; Schwert, 1989:83). With the financial environment in distress, some fund managers consider equities as the preferred asset class to protect the purchasing power of their clients (Ivan, 2013). However, the studies of Ennis and Sebastian (2003) and Nicholas (2004) found evidence that hedge funds will outperform equity markets during a downswing in financial markets. In addition, hedge funds are considered market-neutral due to these investment funds’ unrestricted investment flexibility and more efficient market timing abilities (Ennis & Sebastian, 2003). Hedge funds are also considered to be more unconventional assets for improving portfolio diversification (Lamm, 1999:87), where the variation of investment strategies available in a hedge fund has the ability to satisfy investors with several different risk preferences (Shin, 2012). Still, a number of previous studies have debated conflicting evidence regarding the performance of hedge funds and the persistence in outperforming other markets. This led to the objective of this study; to evaluate the risk-adjusted performance of US and EU hedge funds compared to the associated world equity markets over the 2007–2009 financial crisis. The evidence from this study confirmed the dominance of hedge funds over the CAC 40, DAX, S&P 500 and Dow Jones, from 2004 to 2011, emphasising that the performance of the US and EU hedge funds would overshadow a normal buy-and-hold strategy on the world equity markets under investigation. Overall, the Sharpe-, Sortino-, Jensen’s alpha-, Treynor- and Calmar ratios illustrated that US hedge funds outperformed both EU hedge funds and the associated equity markets over this period. The presence of non-normality among the return distributions led to the use of the Omega ratio as the proper benchmark, which also confirmed the outperformance of US hedge funds over EU hedge funds and associated world equity markets. / MCom (Risk Management), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014