International evidence on Islamic equity fund characteristics and performance persistence

Abstract

This research examines the presence of performance persistence and the impact of fund-specific characteristics on Islamic equity fund (IEF) performance. We conduct an empirical study based on an extensive Database of 301 IEFs and for the period 1999–2013. Our results reveal that fund age, family size and management fees have a significant positive impact on IEF performance. On the other hand, other characteristics such as flows, minimum investment size, higher liquidity, and load fees have negative effect on fund performance, whereas fund size has no significant impact on IEF performance. Our study reveals that Islamic equity funds exhibit negative performance persistence. The paper provides relevant practical implications for managers, analysts and investors. To our knowledge, this empirical study is the first to investigate the intrinsic determinants of Islamic equity fund performance, with sufficient statistical power that is based on an effective sample size with international diversity.