Is There Long-Term Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance?

Download or read book Is There Long-Term Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance? written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper, I analyze long-term performance persistence for a sample of 6525 US equity mutual funds between 1970 and 2013. I test for evidence of five-year performance persistence by using a non-parametric method involving the construction of contingency tables. I also apply a parametric cross-sectional regression of fund performance on past fund performance. I conduct the tests with four different performance measures, namely continuous returns, Jensen's alphas, Four Factor alphas and Sharpe Ratios. I find evidence for performance persistence across all performance measures and with both methodologies. Four Factor alphas show the most significant evidence. The observed persistence is to a great extent driven by funds that consistently perform below or equal to the median of their peers during the analyzed time periods. Performance persistence is especially pronounced during periods where the market shows a sustained upward or downward trend. The results are robust for longer time horizons up to ten years. I find reversals in performance to occur especially when the testing period is to a large extent characterized by a sharp negative market movement, such as the aftermath of the technology bubble in the early years of the 21st century. Past performance over longer time periods can therefore be considered for the evaluation of a long-term investment in a mutual fund, but should not be used as a standalone criterion.