How Active is Your Fund Manager? A New Measure That Predicts Performance

Abstract We introduce a new measure of active portfolio management, Active Share, which represents the share of portfolio holdings that di¤er from the benchmark index holdings. We compute Active Share for domestic equity mutual funds from 1980 to 2003. We relate Active Share to fund characteristics such as size, expenses, and turnover in the cross-section, and we also examine its evolution over time. Active Share predicts fund performance: funds with the highest Active Share signi…cantly outperform their benchmarks, both before and after expenses, and they exhibit strong performance persistence. Non-index funds with the lowest Active Share underperform their benchmarks. JEL classi…cation: G10, G14, G20, G2

Inefficiencies in the pricing of exchange-traded funds

Abstract The prices of exchange-traded funds can deviate significantly from their net asset values, in spite of the arbitrage mechanism that allows authorized participants to create and redeem shares for the underlying portfolios. The deviations are larger in funds holding international or illiquid securities where net asset values are most difficult to determine in real time. To control for stale pricing of the underlying assets, I introduce a novel approach using the cross-section of prices on groups of similar ETFs. I find that significant ETF mispricings remain in many asset classes. Active trading strategies exploiting such inefficiencies produce substantial abnormal returns before transaction costs. JEL classification: G10, G12, G14, G20, G2

Inefficiencies in the pricing of exchange-traded funds

Abstract The prices of exchange-traded funds can deviate significantly from their net asset values, in spite of the arbitrage mechanism that allows authorized participants to create and redeem shares for the underlying portfolios. The deviations are larger in funds holding international or illiquid securities where net asset values are most difficult to determine in real time. To control for stale pricing of the underlying assets, I introduce a novel approach using the cross-section of prices on groups of similar ETFs. I find that significant ETF mispricings remain in many asset classes. Active trading strategies exploiting such inefficiencies produce substantial abnormal returns before transaction costs. JEL classification: G10, G12, G14, G20, G2

Why Do Demand Curves for Stocks Slope Down?

Representative agent models are inconsistent with existing empirical evidence for steep demand curves for individual stocks. This paper resolves the puzzle by proposing that stock prices are instead set by two separate classes of investors. While the market portfolio is still priced by individual investors based on their collective risk aversion, those individual investors also delegate part of their wealth to active money managers who use that capital to price stocks in the cross-section. In equilibrium the fee charged by active managers has to equal the before-fee alpha they earn; this endogenously determines the amount of active capital and the slopes of demand curves. A calibration of the model reveals that demand curves can indeed be steep enough to match the magnitude of many empirical findings, including the price effects for stocks added to (or deleted from) the S&P 500 index.demand curves for stocks, delegated portfolio management, equilibrium mispricing, index premium

The index premium and its hidden cost for index funds

This paper empirically investigates the index premium and its implications from 1990 to 2005. For additions to the S&P 500 and Russell 2000, we find that the price impact from announcement to effective day has averaged + 8.8% and + 4.7%, respectively, and -15.1% and -4.6% for deletions. The premia have been growing over time, peaking in 2000, and declining since then. The implied price elasticity of demand increases with firm size and decreases with idiosyncratic risk, supporting theoretical predictions. We also introduce a new concept that we label the index turnover cost, which represents a hidden cost borne by index funds (and the indexes themselves) due to the index premium. We illustrate this cost and estimate its lower bound as 21-28 bp annually for the S&P 500 and 38-77 bp annually for the Russell 2000.Index premium Index turnover cost Index fund S&P 500 Russell 2000