Critical Finance Review > Vol 7 > Issue 2

Conditional Benchmarks and Predictors of Mutual Fund Performance

Scott Cederburg, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, USA, cederburg@email.arizona.edu , Michael S. O’Doherty, Trulaske College of Business, University of Missouri, USA, odohertym@missouri.edu , N. E. Savin, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, USA, gene-savin@uiowa.edu , Ashish Tiwari, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, USA, ashish-tiwari@uiowa.edu
 
Suggested Citation
Scott Cederburg, Michael S. O’Doherty, N. E. Savin and Ashish Tiwari (2018), "Conditional Benchmarks and Predictors of Mutual Fund Performance", Critical Finance Review: Vol. 7: No. 2, pp 331-372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/104.00000062

Publication Date: 31 Dec 2018
© 2018 Scott Cederburg, Michael S. O’Doherty, N. E. Savin, and Ashish Tiwari
 
Subjects
 
Keywords
G11G23
Mutual fundsConditional benchmarksPerformance evaluation
 

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In this article:
1. Introduction 
2. Data 
3. Performance Evaluation Methods and Conditioning Variables 
4. Results 
5. Conclusion 
References 

Abstract

Recent studies link mutual fund performance to measures of active management, and this evidence often takes the form of large spreads in unconditional alphas for characteristic-sorted portfolios. Unconditional benchmarks can, however, produce misleading inferences on managerial skill for strategies that exhibit substantial turnover and unstable factor exposures. We propose a performance attribution model that accounts for predictable changes in portfolio style. Compared to existing methods, our benchmarks yield superior tracking performance and a more powerful statistical assessment of abnormal returns. We re-evaluate six active management proxies using our method and conclude that these measures are largely unrelated to managerial ability.

DOI:10.1561/104.00000062