Hedge fund market runs during financial crises

Abstract

Hedge funds exit financial markets simultaneously after enormous shocks, such as the global financial crisis. While previous studies highlight only fund investors’ synchronized withdrawals as the major driver of massive asset liquidations, we primarily focus on informed and rational fund managers and suggest a theoretical model that illustrates fund managers’ synchronized market runs. This study shows that the possibility of runs induces panic-based market runs not because of systematic risk itself but because of the fear of runs. We find that when the market regime changes from a normal to a ‘bad’ state in which runs are possible, hedge funds reduce their investments prior to runs. In addition, market runs are more likely to occur in markets in which hedge funds have greater market exposure and uninformed traders are more sensitive to past price movements.