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Performance, stock selection and market timing of the German equity mutual fund industry

Keith Cuthbertson and Dirk Nitzsche

Journal of Empirical Finance, 2013, vol. 21, issue C, 86-101

Abstract: We investigate the performance of the German equity mutual fund industry over 20years (monthly data 1990–2009) using the false discovery rate (FDR) to examine both model selection and performance measurement. When using the Fama–French three factor (3F) model (with no market timing) we find that at most 0.5% of funds have truly positive alpha-performance and about 27% have truly negative-alpha performance. However, the use of the FDR in model selection implies inclusion of market timing variables and this results in a large increase in truly positive alpha funds. However, when we use a measure of “total” performance, which includes the contribution of both security selection (alpha) and market timing, we obtain results similar to the 3F model. These results are largely invariant to different sample periods, alternative factor models and to the performance of funds investing in German and non-German firms — the latter casts doubt on the ‘home-bias’ hypothesis of superior performance in ‘local’ markets.

Keywords: Mutual fund performance; False discovery rate; Market timing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C15 G11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:empfin:v:21:y:2013:i:c:p:86-101

DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2012.12.002

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Journal of Empirical Finance is currently edited by R. T. Baillie, F. C. Palm, Th. J. Vermaelen and C. C. P. Wolff

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