Fixed-income Funds Research Articles

Assessing the contribution of shadow banking to systemic risk in South Africa during COVID-19

Background: Systemic risk studies in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) period focus mostly on the banking sector. Regulators however, yearn for data on the contribution of shadow banking to systemic risk during the pandemic.Aim: The primary goal of the study is to determine the contribution of shadow banking to systemic risk during the COVID-19 period in South Africa.Setting: The study focussed on shadow banking, non-bank financial institutions involved in credit intermediation outside the traditional banking system in South Africa.Method: Systemic risk is measured by conditional value-at-risk methodology using monthly market returns of fixed-income funds, funds-of-funds, money market funds and multi-asset funds from January 2015 to December 2021.Results: Shadow banking contributed to systemic risk during COVID-19, and systemic risk reached an all-time high during the onset of the pandemic. Money market funds exhibited higher systemic risk because of the COVID-19 shock. However, multi-asset funds and funds-of-funds are the classes that contributed more to systemic risk during the COVID-19 period. Furthermore, systemic risk trends of multi-asset funds and funds-of-funds increased with the rise in COVID-19 infections, except in the third wave when systemic risk peaked months after the surge in COVID-19 cases.Conclusion: Shadow banking contributes to systemic risk in South Africa and systemic risk peaked during the COVID-19 period.Contribution: There is growing evidence on systemic risk during COVID-19, and this study extends the focus to shadow banking. It draws attention of regulators to credit intermediation outside traditional banks.

Risk assessment for synthetic GICs: a quantitative framework for asset–liability management

AbstractThis study addresses a research gap in quantitative modeling framework and scenario analysis for the risk management of stable value fund wraps, a crucial segment of the U.S. financial market with over USD $400 billion in assets. In this paper, we present an asset–liability model that encompasses an innovative approach to modeling the assets of fixed-income funds coupled with a liability model backed by empirical analysis on a unique data set covering 80% of the stand-alone plan sponsor market, contrasting with models based solely on regular deterministic cash flows and interest rate differences. Our model identifies and analyzes two critical risk scenarios from the insurer’s perspective: inflationary and yield spike. Our approach demonstrates that the tail risk of wraps, used as an economic capital measure, is sensitive to characteristic parameters of the fund, such as the duration, portfolio composition and credit quality of assets. This finding significantly differs from U.S. regulatory approaches like the NAIC’s, which often result in a zero capital requirement. These findings reveal limitations in current actuarial risk and profitability metrics for U.S. insurers and argue that a more sophisticated risk model reproducing the two critical scenarios is necessary.

On the superior performance of SRI funds

We compare the performance of 1126 US mutual funds deemed socially responsible to that of a matching sample of conventional funds over the three-decade period January 1980–December 2019. The comparisons are made over the entire period as well as the descending (bear) and ascending (bull) market subperiods, classified either according to the NBER method or the regime switching model. Our results indicate that SRI funds outperform their peers over the entire sample period. Additionally, regardless of the method used to the identify market condition or the asset pricing model employed, SRI funds as a group significantly outperform their conventional counterparts during bull markets but insignificantly so during bear markets. However, all-equity SRI funds and those that includes Equity and Fixed Income funds, significantly outperform their peers under either regime, with both methods and for all asset pricing specifications. Further examination indicates that the main driver of differences in the performance of SRI funds and their conventional peers can be attributed to their superior selection ability.

Common Asset Holdings as an Amplifier of Open-Ended Funds Liquidity Risk: Evidence from Global Fixed-Income Funds

Common Asset Holdings as an Amplifier of Open-Ended Funds Liquidity Risk: Evidence from Global Fixed-Income Funds

Bond Fund Versus Islam Bond Fund: A Comparison of the Performance of Fixed Income Funds in Malaysia

Bond Fund Versus Islam Bond Fund: A Comparison of the Performance of Fixed Income Funds in Malaysia

The Use of Credit Ratings in the Delegated Management of Fixed Income Assets

Investment mandates of fixed income funds constrain managers’ portfolio decisions, often employing credit ratings to classify asset risk. We categorize U.S. and European fixed income funds’ mandates using textual analysis and measure the use of ratings. Over the past two decades, despite the weaknesses of ratings revealed in the global financial crisis, ratings use has increased significantly. Since 2010, the fraction of funds not using ratings in any way has fallen by almost half in both the United States and Europe. By 2020, 94% of U.S. funds and 65% of European funds used ratings. These patterns fit agency-based models of investment mandates and point to a lack of practically useful alternatives. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance. Funding: This work was supported by the Nasdaq Nordic Foundation. Supplemental Material: The data files and e-companion are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4848 .

Investment style consistency and performance of Indian fixed income mutual funds

In this study, we examine investment style, and style consistency and its relationship with risk-adjusted performance of the Indian fixed income mutual funds (MFs) using a sample of 242 funds across 16 categories over a period from April 2015 to March 2020. Our findings indicate that (a) fund managers practice securities selection, but their securities selection ability fails to improve risk-adjusted returns; (b) higher style consistency leads to better risk-adjusted performance; and (c) investment style and style consistency have considerable impact on fund performance. This is possibly the first comprehensive study that analyses investment style and its relationship with the performance of Indian fixed income MFs and contributes to the growing body of research on performance evaluation of fixed income funds.

Practical Applications of The Hunt for Alpha in ESG Fixed Income: Fund Evidence from around the World

In <ext-link><bold><italic>The Hunt for Alpha in ESG Fixed Income: Fund Evidence from around the World</italic></bold></ext-link>, from the Fall 2022 issue of <bold><italic>The Journal of Impact and ESG Investing</italic></bold>, authors <bold>Inna Zorina</bold>, of <bold>Vanguard</bold>, and <bold>Lux Corlett-Roy</bold>, formerly of <bold>Vanguard</bold>, find that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) fixed-income funds have not consistently outperformed the bond market, after controlling for well-established fixed-income factors. Recent years have seen a rapid rise in assets under management by investment funds that take into account ESG considerations in asset allocation decisions. It is therefore important to understand whether reallocating assets to ESG funds is likely to create alpha (meaning outperformance of the market average) or otherwise affect portfolio returns. The study finds that ESG fund returns are driven by their exposure to credit default risk and term until bond maturity, just like non-ESG funds. Higher-risk and longer-term funds have higher average returns, while ESG funds with higher expense ratios outperform the market less frequently than those with lower expense ratios. Given the lack of consistent alpha and the fact that bondholders do not have shareholder voting rights like those of stockholders, ESG fixed-income funds may or may not align with the goals of impact-investing clients.

Hidden Duration: Interest Rate Derivatives in Fixed Income Funds

Hidden Duration: Interest Rate Derivatives in Fixed Income Funds

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF FACTORS INFLUENCING PERFORMANCE OF SHARIAH MUTUAL FUNDS IN INDONESIA

This paper aims to identify the factors that affect the performance of shariah mutual funds. This study uses SEM to test the factors that hypothetically influence mutual fund performance, namely mutual fund manager skills, characteristics, and analyst coverage. This study uses a sample of 45 mutual funds registered with the OJK [financial services authority] for at least three years: equity funds, fixed-income funds, and mixed funds. The results indicate that fund manager skills negatively influence mutual fund performance but not significantly. In addition, the characteristics positively affect the mutual fund performance but are insignificant. Last, analyst coverage is positively influencing the mutual fund performance significantly. The results provide information that would benefit the investors in predicting the performance of shariah mutual funds and the fund managers to improve the performance of their managed funds. Further research will ascertain the inability of market-timing skills and asset allocation strategies to improve mutual fund performance.

Performance of islamic equity and fixed-income funds during the covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia

Performance of islamic equity and fixed-income funds during the covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia

The Hunt for Alpha in ESG Fixed Income: Fund Evidence from around the World

Investment organizations around the globe have increasingly been committed to integrating ESG considerations into their processes. Capital allocation to ESG fixed-income funds keeps growing both in absolute terms and relative to non-ESG fixed-income funds. The answer to the question whether incorporating ESG information into analysis and applying ESG screens leads to similar, better, or worse investment performance is of interest to many investors. To help shed light on this question, we test whether ESG fixed-income funds generate out- or underperformance after controlling for systematic fixed-income factors. We apply a consistent methodology across a broad sample of ESG fixed-income funds that includes European, US, and Global funds. Most funds in our sample did not produce statistically significant positive or negative gross alphas. Performance of ESG fixed-income funds appears to be mainly driven by systematic fixed-income factor exposures. This conclusion is similar across ESG fixed-income funds with a European, US, and Global investment focus.

FACTORS INFLUENCING FIXED INCOME MUTUAL FUND PERFORMANCE

A mutual fund is one of the investment instruments currently developing in Indonesia. There are many types of mutual funds, such as money market funds, fixed-income funds, equity funds, and mixed funds. When an investor invests their money in mutual funds, the investor has to be able to pick the best mutual funds based on mutual funds' performance and their risk profile. There are a lot of factors to determine mutual funds' performance. This research aims to analyze the effect of fund age, fund size, expenditure ratio, and past performance on fixed income mutual funds performance starting from 2016 – 2019. The performance of fixed income mutual funds is measured with the Sharpe method. Multiple regression results analyzed data from the research. The research results show that fund age has a negative and significant effect on fixed income mutual funds. Meanwhile, fund size, expenditure ratio, and past performance don’t significantly affect the performance of fixed-income mutual funds. This research provides investors insight into being more selective in choosing mutual fund products, especially fixed income mutual funds. Furthermore, portfolio managers might use this study to assess the performance of the mutual funds they manage. So that the mutual funds they manage might have a higher future performance. The study contributes to a better understanding of the factors to consider when investing in fixed income mutual funds.

Fund Selection: Sense and Sensibility

Studying a comprehensive universe of European-domiciled cross-border UCITS equity and fixed income funds we find that (i) active equity funds on average outperform passive alternatives before fees by about the level of the fees, (ii) active fixed income funds underperform on a net basis, (iii) fees consume a significant part of the value added of active management, (iv) simple fund selection rules help to identify the better active managers. Finally, we develop the concept of minimum required selection skill and find that investors in actively managed funds could meet this hurdle provided fees are limited.

The effects of U.S. monetary policy shocks on mutual fund investing

We study the effects of unexpected changes in the stance of U.S. monetary policy on the performance and flows of mutual funds investing in domestic and international financial markets over the recent period of unconventional monetary policy. Taking an agnostic approach on the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, we find that monetary policy shocks have a direct effect on fund performance and flow dynamics, and that the effect of these surprises differs by investment strategy. Results show that an unexpected tightening of the stance of policy is associated with negative performance and outflows from fixed-income funds, in particular those investing in international, government and investment grade bond markets. Results also point to a negative relationship between equity fund performance and policy tightening. Moreover, our findings indicate that Federal Reserve’s expansionary balance sheet policy (i.e. large-scale asset purchases) has a strong positive effect on the performance and flows of equity funds, especially on those investing in emerging markets.

Significant Insights, Value Orientation and Differences Between the Mutual Fund Investment Flow and Indian Stock Market Returns – A Theoretical Assimilation

Researchers and academicians from all over the world have become interested in the study of the causal relationship between mutual fund investment flow and stock market returns in recent years. But there is currently a contradictory body of empirical data on this matter. Additionally, there are a few studies that take the case of India into account. In order to better understand the dynamics of the relationship between mutual fund investment flow and stock market returns in India from January 2000 to May 2010, the following article will do just that. The Granger causality tests are applied using the Toda and Yamamoto approach, which yields evidence of a one-way causal relationship between stock market returns and mutual fund investment flow. This suggests that the expansion of stock market activity in India draws mutual funds to the stock market. Therefore, the government and monetary authorities should take the necessary actions to reduce the volatility and increase the efficiency of the capital market. By gathering money from households and investing it in the stock and debt markets, mutual funds enable portfolio diversification and relative risk aversion. In India, a specific type of mutual fund called fixed-income funds invests in debt securities that have been issued by businesses, banks, or the government. In India, fixed-income funds are also referred to as debt funds and income funds. The goal of the current study is to assess the performance of a few selected debt or income mutual fund schemes in India based on their daily NAV using various statistical measures. In the past ten years, income schemes have become more and more popular. The securities that were purchased are referred to as the fund's portfolio. There may have been restrictions on rival products, which led to the emergence of money market and (short-term) bond funds. In this study, the performance of several mutual fund types in India was compared and studied. The results showed that equities funds outperformed income funds. The study also found that institutional fund managers can time their investments and that equity fund managers have significant market timing ability, but broker operated funds did not demonstrate this ability. Additionally, empirical research has shown that fund managers possess significant timing ability and can time their investments to match market conditions.

Sitting bucks: Stale pricing in fixed income funds

We find evidence of widespread stale pricing in bond mutual funds and the resulting risks of dilution and fragility. A principal driver of this phenomenon is the high illiquidity of funds’ holdings, which makes accurate pricing difficult and provides funds with greater discretion over valuation. Consequently, net asset values (NAVs) are extremely stale and fund returns are predictable over several days and weeks, particularly during market crises. Opportunistic traders withdraw capital from overvalued funds, exacerbating the risk of fund runs, while buy-and-hold investors face annual dilution of around $1.2 billion. Our results highlight adverse consequences of insufficient fair valuation practices that remain pervasive even after corrective regulations that followed the 2003 market-timing scandal.

Framing effects of information on investment risk perception

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to verify whether the framing effects of past performance information affect the risk perception of individuals for fixed-income and variable income fund. We assess whether risk perception varies depending on how information is communicated to investors, considering the relevance of possible framing effects arising from how information is presented in investment funds’ prospectuses and reports. This study is aimed at investors (individual and institutional) and fund industry regulators, highlighting the importance of past performance presentation. This article aims to contribute to the area by investigating how investors are influenced by varying perceptions of risk and return on fixed-income and variable-income assets, depending on information presentation format. The approach used is based on a 2x2 factorial quasi-experiment, in which format (within-subject) and time horizon (between-subjects) effects are tested in a sample of 143 respondents. Our results indicate that, for investment in a variable-income fund, a monthly yield presentation format leads to higher perceived risk, and that a framing emphasizing fund value evolution leads to higher perceived returns. As for investment in a fixed-income fund, the framing that emphasizes fund value leads to both higher perceived risk and higher perceived returns. When comparing the results for the two types of investments, the risk perception was higher for variable-income than for fixed income funds. However, perceived returns were higher for fixed income than for variable-income funds due to the framing effect, although realized returns do not corroborate this perception.

COLLECTIVE INVESTMENT SCHEMES’ RETURNS AND ONE YEAR COVID-19 EXPERIENCE: THE NIGERIA’S CASE

This study examines the impact and nexus between cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the returns of seven classes of collective investment schemes (CIS) in Nigeria (bond funds, equity-based funds, fixed income funds, ethical funds, money market funds, mixed funds and real estate funds) within the first 52 weeks of the outbreak of the pandemic in Nigeria, 27th February, 2020 to 26th February, 2021 using Auto-regressive Distributed Lag and Pearson correlation techniques. Empirical findings suggest that COVID-19 cases and returns of collective investment schemes in Nigeria are cointegrated while COVID-19 cases are negatively correlated with the returns from bonds funds, equity based funds and money market funds as against the positive correlation between COVID-19 cases and returns from ethical, fixed income and real estate funds. Furthermore, COVID-19 confirmed cases are negatively related with returns from mixed fund as against the fund’s returns’ positive correlation with COVID-19 fatal and discharged cases. Moreover, except for COVID-19 discharged cases which has significant positive impact on fixed income funds’ returns, none of the other indicators of COVID-19 exerts significant influence on the returns of each of the seven CIS in Nigeria. It can be concluded that COVID-19 cases do not have significant impact on collective investment schemes’ returns in Nigeria. It is recommended that collective investment schemes in Nigeria should be accorded the popularization, incentives, boost, empowerment it deserves by the government and the organized private sector. KEYWORDS: ARDL; COVID-19; Collective Investment Schemes; Returns; Mutual funds. JEL CLASSIFICATION: E44, G11, G14

Reframing supply chain finance in an era of reglobalization: On the value of multi-sided crowdfunding platforms

This paper investigates the moderating role of a host government that promotes a multi-sided platform (MSP) as an alternative supply chain finance (SCF) solution. The MSP comprises equity crowdfunding, fixed-income funds, and low-rate lending facilities. We examine the sequential interactions between the host government (as the dominant legislator), a crowd of risk-averse small investors, and two competing SCs (local and foreign) that are engaged in Cournot competition. The players’ equilibrium strategies are characterized under two platform power structures, namely small investors-led and SC-led. The joint impact of government legislation and platform’s configuration on the performance of the proposed SCF mechanism is investigated. Results reveal that, while the regulated MSP outperforms a deregulated scenario, the profit-seeking behavior of the host government may intensify the power struggle between the local SC and small investors, and restrict the platform’s overall performance. To successfully practice smart protectionism, policy makers are urged to reframe existing SCF schemes by leveraging their moderating influence and prioritizing social welfare over their short-term economic goals. This not only abates the power imbalance in MSPs, but also enhances the players’ participation and enables host governments to further support their digital platform economy in the era of reglobalization.