Maria do Céu Cortez

Persistence in Portuguese mutual fund performance

Recent evidence suggests that future performance is predictable from past performance, that is, funds with superior (inferior) performance in the past are likely to remain good (bad) performers in the future. This research addresses the persistence of mutual fund performance in a European regional market (the Portuguese equity fund market). Some of the problems in evaluating fund persistence are identified in the context of limited sample size and using the peer group median as a benchmark for contingency table analysis of performance persistence. The criteria for assessing performance persistence based on the contingency table methodology of repeated winners and losers are presented in terms of significance statistics, adjusted for small sample bias. The adjustments are accomplished through the Yates continuity correction and Fishers exact p-value. The appropriateness of each criteria under different circumstances is also discussed. The analysis of the returns of all Portuguese domestic equity funds, since a representative number was established, shows some performance persistence (on a quarterly basis). The persistence, however, is reduced when the returns are controlled for the various dimensions of risk. Significant risk persistence has been documented. Furthermore, for more or less frequent intervals of measurement, the industry persistence is rejected, although individual funds exhibit superior/inferior performance.

Socially Responsible Investing in the Global Market: The Performance of US and European Funds

This paper investigates the style and performance of US and European global socially responsible funds. Several specifications of the return generating process are applied as well as their corresponding conditional versions. Most European global socially responsible funds do not show significant performance differences in relation to both conventional benchmarks and socially responsible benchmarks. US funds and Austrian funds show evidence of underperformance. By applying conditional models, we find evidence of time-varying betas, but not of time-varying alphas. With respect to investment style, we have found evidence that socially responsible funds are strongly exposed to small cap and growth stocks. While these results are consistent with previous studies, they uncover some misclassification issues in these funds. Finally, we have also documented a significant home bias for global socially responsible funds.

Conditioning information in mutual fund performance evaluation: Portuguese evidence

We estimate and compare the performance of Portuguese-based mutual funds that invest in the domestic market and in the European market using unconditional and conditional models of performance evaluation. Besides applying both partial and full conditional models, we use European information variables, instead of the most common local ones, and consider stochastically detrended conditional variables in order to avoid spurious regressions. The results suggest that mutual fund managers are not able to outperform the market, presenting negative or neutral performance. The incorporation of conditioning information in performance evaluation models is supported by our findings, as it improves the explanatory power of the models and there is evidence of both time-varying betas and alphas related to the public information variables. It is also shown that the number of lags to be used in the stochastic detrending procedure is a critical choice, as it will impact the significance of the conditioning information. In addition, we observe a distance effect, since managers who invest locally seem to outperform those who invest in the European market. However, after controlling for public information, this effect is slightly reduced. Furthermore, the results suggest that survivorship bias has a small impact on performance estimates.

Selectivity and timing abilities of international socially responsible funds

This article analyses the selectivity and market timing abilities of international Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) funds, from eight European markets, in comparison to conventional funds with similar characteristics. The results show that differences in market timing abilities of international SRI funds and their conventional peers are not statistically significant. However, SRI funds investing in European equities are significantly worse stock pickers than conventional funds, whereas for funds investing globally, selectivity abilities are similar among both fund groups. Hence, our results suggest that a broader investment universe might increase SRI fund managers’ stock picking abilities and, consequently, improve SRI fund performance.

Venture capital and the financial crisis in Portugal: the VC managers’ viewpoint

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine, from the venture capital (VC) managers’ perspective, the impact of the international financial and sovereign debt crises on the VC industry in Portugal, and the changes and adjustments VC managers were forced to adopt to their procedures and current practices to cope with these challenges. Design/methodology/approach A two-step research design was adopted to best capture the dynamics of the crisis. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and content analysed. The initial set of interviews with ten VC managers was conducted in 2011, immediately before the country bailout; and the second set in 2013, when the full impact of the debt crisis was being felt. Findings The study shows that the crises had a significant impact on the VC industry producing a complex and dynamic environment with high levels of uncertainty. The VC managers’ contradictory perceptions reflect their own struggle to figure out the best way to deal with the pressures in such a volatile environment where new opportunities may also arise. In general, VC firms became more selective adopting a more prudential attitude and tighter control mechanisms. Originality/value This study contributes to the field by analysing, from the VC managers’ perspective, the cumulative impact of the international financial and sovereign debt crisis on a European VC market with specific features: small dimension of the industry operating in a bank-centred capital market and where family-owned SMEs predominate.

Investing in Mutual Funds: Does it Pay to Be a Sinner or a Saint in Times of Crisis?

We investigate the performance of US socially responsible funds that employ different stock selection criteria: religious, social and ‘irresponsible’ criteria. Performance is evaluated over different market regimes using a Markov-switching conditional CAPM model that defines different states of the market endogenously. The ‘irresponsible’ fund outperforms in low volatility regimes, but underperforms in high volatility regimes. Furthermore, the risk of the ‘irresponsible’ fund is higher in low volatility regimes and lower in high volatility regimes. Socially responsible funds do not adjust risk according to market conditions. These findings suggest that socially responsible companies might provide better investments during periods of crisis.

The performance of European SRI funds investing in bonds and their comparison to conventional funds

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the performance of European SRI fixed-income funds domiciled in France and in Germany compared to characteristics-matched conventional funds. Fund performance is evaluated by means of conditional multi-factor models that allow for both time-varying risk and performance. The results show that SRI balanced funds perform similarly to conventional funds, whereas SRI bond funds significantly outperform their peers. The outperformance of SRI bond funds seems more related to their government (and not their corporate) bond holdings. Compared to conventional funds, SRI funds are significantly less exposed to bonds issued by the countries most affected by the Euro sovereign debt crisis, which is consistent with more conservative and long term-oriented investment strategies.

The Conditional Performance of Euro Bond Funds: Evidence from Portugal During the Debt Crisis

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the performance of a survivorship bias-free data set of Portuguese funds investing in Euro-denominated bonds by using conditional models that consider the public information available to investors when the returns are generated. We find that bond funds underperform the market significantly and by an economically relevant magnitude. This underperformance cannot be explained by the expenses they charge. Our findings support the use of conditional performance evaluation models, since we find strong evidence of both time-varying risk and performance, dependent on the slope of the term structure and the inverse relative wealth variables. We also show that survivorship bias has a significant impact on performance estimates. Furthermore, during the European debt crisis, bond fund managers performed significantly better than in non-crisis periods and were able to achieve neutral performance. This improved performance throughout the crisis seems to be related to changes in funds’ investment styles.