Hedge Fund Holdings Research Articles

Hedge fund ownership and the innovation of high-tech firms: Evidence from the Science and technology innovation board in China

High-tech firms stand apart from traditional firms due to their emphasis on innovation. This paper provides empirical evidence indicating new mechanisms through which hedge fund holdings enhances innovation of high-tech firms listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in China. Different from that of traditional firms, this paper finds that hedge fund ownership enhances innovation output by increasing innovation input and improving innovation efficiency of high-tech firms in China. The positive relationship is especially evident among firms with long-term holdings by hedge funds, low agency costs, a high degree of equity checks and balances, and those that are privately held enterprises.

Did the STOCK Act impact the performance, risk and flow of hedge funds?

PurposeThis research aims to examine hedge funds’ performance, risk and flow before and after the implementation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.Design/methodology/approachThis paper includes the use of different factor models to highlight the performance and risk of hedge funds before and after the implementation of the STOCK Act. Hedge fund holdings are retrieved from Thomson Reuters Lipper Hedge Fund Database (TASS).FindingsThis study finds significant differences before and after the implementation of the STOCK Act. The results for the entire sample period indicate that hedge funds suffered lower-alpha, standard deviation and idiosyncratic risk after the implementation of the STOCK Act.Originality/valueThe paper’s originality and value lie in addressing the relationship gap between the STOCK Act and hedge fund performance.

Crowded Trades and Tail Risk

Abstract Hedge fund positions are an important component of crowded trades. These vehicles are particularly active, take highly concentrated positions, and utilize leverage and short sales. Using a database of hedge fund holdings, we measure the degree of security-level crowdedness. The difference between the average returns on portfolios sorted by high versus low crowdedness portfolios is sizable, and the variation in the realized portfolio returns is distinct from other traditional risk factors. Further, hedge fund exposures to crowdedness are often significant, and they help to explain downside “tail risk,” as funds with higher exposures experience relatively larger drawdowns during periods of industry distress. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

The role of hedge funds in the asset pricing: evidence from China

We document that hedge funds nurture mispricing in the Chinese financial market. We examine the relationship between hedge fund holdings and the degree of mispricing, assuming that hedge funds’ stock holdings are mainly for arbitrage and not for hedging. We also examine this relationship with and without short-selling restrictions. Hedge funds intentionally hold overvalued stocks. Their trades, which generate an abnormal return of 1.78% per month, also impede the dissipation of stock mispricing. Furthermore, we find that trend-chasing may explain why hedge funds prefer to hold overvalued stocks. This research provides a new perspectives on the information content and potential investment value of hedge fund holdings in emerging markets.

The Role of Hedge Funds in Asset Pricing: Evidence from China

We document that hedge funds nurture mispricing in the Chinese financial market. We exploit the relationship between hedge fund holdings and the degree of mispricing in case that hedge fund holdings of stocks are mainly for arbitrage purpose but not for hedging, and that with and without short-selling restrictions. Hedge funds intentionally hold overvalued stocks. Their trades, which generate an abnormal return to 1.78% per month, also impede the dissipation of stock mispricing. Further, we find trend chasing may be the reason why hedge funds prefer to hold overvalued stocks. This research sheds new lights on the information content and potential investment value of hedge funds holdings in emerging markets.

Innovation and Informed Trading: Evidence from Industry ETFs

Abstract We empirically examine the impact of industry exchange-traded funds (IETFs) on informed trading and market efficiency. We find that IETF short interest spikes simultaneously with hedge fund holdings on the member stock before positive earnings surprises, reflecting long-the-stock/short-the-ETF activity. This pattern is stronger among stocks with high industry risk exposure. A difference-in-difference analysis on the ETF inception event shows that IETFs reduce post-earnings-announcement drift more among stocks with high industry risk exposure, suggesting that IETFs improve market efficiency. We also find that the short interest ratio of IETFs positively predicts IETF returns, consistent with the hedging role of IETFs.

Innovation and Informed Trading: Evidence from Industry ETFs

We empirically examine the impact of industry exchange-traded funds (IETFs) on informed trading and market efficiency. We find that IETF short interest spikes simultaneously with hedge fund holdings on the member stock before positive earnings surprises, reflecting long-the-stock/short-the-ETF activity. This pattern is stronger among stocks with high industry risk exposure. A difference-in-difference analysis on the ETF inception event shows that IETFs reduce post-earnings-announcement drift more among stocks with high industry risk exposure, suggesting that IETFs improve market efficiency. We also find that the short interest ratio of IETFs positively predicts IETF returns, consistent with the hedging role of IETFs.

Practical Applications of Alternative Asset Fees, Returns, and Volatility of State Pension Funds: A Case Study of the New Jersey Pension Fund

Practical Applications Summary In Alternative Asset Fees, Returns, and Volatility of State Pension Funds: A Case Study of the New Jersey Pension Fund from the Winter 2020 issue of The Journal of Alternative Investments, authors Jeff Hooke (Johns Hopkins Carey Business School), Carol Park (Maryland Public Policy Institute), and Ken C. Yook (Carey Business School) investigate whether state and municipal pension funds are benefiting from their increased investments in alternative assets. The authors focus on whether the performance of alternative asset funds is good enough to justify their relatively high fees. Examining the New Jersey state pension fund—whose annual reports provide the most detailed data—they find that its private equity (PE) and hedge fund (HF) holdings both underperform commonly used benchmarks, and its HFs’ performance is substantially correlated with that of publicly traded assets while also being more volatile. Therefore, the PE and HF performance and diversification qualities are not good enough to justify their higher fees. Also, those fees are inadequately reported due to a questionable “honor system” of fee reporting and a lack of auditing. For all these reasons, the authors recommend that pension funds substantially reduce their alternative-asset holdings. TOPICS:Pension funds, retirement, private equity, portfolio construction

Hedge fund ownership and voluntary disclosure

Using 13F filings from 1996 to 2011, we document that hedge fund holdings are negatively associated with the subsequent frequency of portfolio firms’ voluntary disclosure. This is opposite to the positive association documented in earlier studies for overall institutional ownership as well as for non-hedge fund ownership in our sample. The negative association is more pronounced for hedge fund ownership with short-term investment horizons. Tests using measures of hedge fund influence suggest that hedge fund ownership impacts voluntary disclosure as opposed to hedge funds selecting stocks with subsequent declines in disclosure. We also find that the stocks that decrease their voluntary disclosure subsequent to increases in hedge fund holdings earn positive abnormal returns. Overall, our findings suggest that the impact of hedge funds on firm voluntary disclosure policy differs from that of other institutional investors and potentially contributes to hedge fund profitability.

Bank Regulatory Reforms and Institutional Equity Holdings

This paper examines the effects of changes in bank regulatory environment on the risk, return, and liquidity characteristics of equity portfolios of U.S. bank holding companies between 1997 and 2016. Using a comprehensive sample of bank and hedge fund holdings data we examine the impact of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the introduction of the second and third Basel Capital Accords, and the implementation of the Dodd-Frank legislation on institutional portfolios. We document a significant increase in both the idiosyncratic volatility and illiquidity of banks' portfolios during the period of financial deregulation initiated by the formal removal of restrictions prohibiting banks from engaging in securities trading. In contrast, subsequent reforms of the bank capital requirements system and the prohibition of banks from proprietary trading activities lead to reductions in those metrics. Our results suggest that banks' restricted ability to engage in market-making can be offset by the activities of hedge funds, although the consequences of this substitution for long-term market stability remain unclear.

Crowded Trades and Tail Risk

Hedge fund positions are an important component of crowded trades. These vehicles are particularly active, take highly concentrated positions, and utilize leverage and short sales. Using a database of hedge fund holdings, we measure the degree of security-level crowdedness. The difference between the average returns on portfolios sorted by high versus low crowdedness portfolios is sizable and their variation is distinct from other traditional risk factors. Further, hedge fund exposures to crowdedness are often significant and they help to explain downside tail risk, as funds with higher exposures experience relatively larger drawdowns during periods of industry distress.

Arbitrage Trading: The Long and the Short of It

We examine net arbitrage trading (NAT) measured by the difference between quarterly abnormal hedge fund holdings and abnormal short interest. NAT strongly predicts stock returns in the cross-section. Across ten well-known stock anomalies, abnormal returns are realized only among stocks experiencing large NAT. Exploiting Regulation SHO, which facilitated short selling for a random group of stocks, we present causal evidence that NAT has stronger return predictability among stocks facing greater limits to arbitrage. We also find large returns for anomalies that arbitrageurs chose to exploit despite capital constraints during the 2007–09 financial crisis. We confirm our findings using daily data. Received September 1, 2016; editorial decision May 28, 2018 by Editor Andrew Karolyi. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Arbitrage Involvement and Security Prices

We propose that hedge funds more aggressively buy underpriced stocks when they are allowed to short. To test our proposition, we utilize the institutional feature in Hong Kong in virtue of which only stocks added to a special list can be shorted. Our first-stage analysis uses hedge fund holdings data and provides evidence that the emergency of shortable securities, indeed, causes hedge funds to more aggressively buy seemingly underpriced stocks. Our second-stage analysis presents evidence that hedge funds’ increased involvement in these stocks helps correct underpricing and moves prices in the direction of fundamentals. This paper was accepted by Lauren Cohen, finance. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2912 .

Does Hedge Fund Short-Termism Shape Up Merger Payment?

Using a sample of mergers & acquisitions and hedge-fund holdings from 1995 to 2009, we find that pre-merger hedge-fund holdings in target firms increase proportion of payment made in cash, but not the premium. In the presence of hedge-fund holdings, higher unexpected cash payment leads to a higher likelihood of deal completion, shortens deal duration, but has no effects on premium. At the same time, target firms held by high-turnover hedge funds are more likely to accept bidders' overvalued equity. Overall, hedge funds holding target firms shape merger payment in ways that do not necessarily benefit target firms' long-term shareholders.

Hedge funds in M&A deals: Is there exploitation of insider information?

This paper investigates trading patterns in target and acquirer firms prior to public announcement of M&A deals, a corporate event in which group based co-offence has been anecdotally documented. Our analysis differentiates whether such trading is primarily conducted by hedge funds with short-term investment horizons as opposed to other short horizon investors or hedge funds and institutional investors with long-term horizons, in both the equity and derivatives markets. Our results are consistent with exploitation of M&A deal related information prior to the deal's public announcement. In particular we find that the greater the likelihood of insider information leakage, the greater the short-term hedge fund holdings. We consider several alternative explanations, such as those related to the short-term hedge fund's skill in identifying profitable trades' ex-ante; our results seem inconsistent with such alternative explanations.

Do Hedge Funds Possess Private Information about IPO Stocks? Evidence from Post-IPO Holdings*

Using hedge funds’ holdings of IPO stocks, we find that stocks with abnormally high hedge fund holdings, based on stock and deal characteristics, yield abnormal returns. Moreover, hedge funds are able to sell IPO stocks in a timely fashion before long-run underperforming periods start, suggesting that hedge funds possess information advantages in IPO stocks. Finally, we address the question of where hedge funds may have obtained their information advantages. Hedge funds earn higher abnormal returns in “connected” stocks when their prime brokers also serve as IPO underwriters, indicating that such connections enable hedge funds to make more informed investment decisions in IPO stocks.Received December 31, 2014; editorial decision May 27, 2017 by Editor Wayne Ferson.

Hedge Fund Holdings and Stock Market Efficiency

We study the relation between hedge fund equity holdings and measures of informational efficiency of stock prices derived from intraday transactions as well as daily data. Our findings support the role of hedge funds as arbitrageurs who reduce mispricing in the market. Hedge funds invest in stocks that are relatively inefficiently priced, and the price efficiency of these stocks improves after hedge funds increase their holdings. Hedge fund ownership contributes more to efficient pricing than ownership by other types of institutional investors. However, stocks held by hedge funds experienced large declines in price efficiency during several liquidity crises. Received July 27, 2016; editorial decision January 07, 2017 by Editor Wayne Ferson.

Hedge Fund Holdings and Stock Market Efficiency

We examine the relation between changes in hedge fund stock holdings and measures of informational efficiency of equity prices derived from transactions data, and find that, on average, increased hedge fund ownership leads to significant improvements in the informational efficiency of equity prices. The contribution of hedge funds to price efficiency is greater than the contributions of other types of institutional investors, such as mutual funds or banks. However, stocks held by hedge funds experienced extreme declines in price efficiency during liquidity crises, most notably in the last quarter of 2008, and the declines were most severe in stocks held by hedge funds connected to Lehman Brothers and hedge funds using leverage.

Hedge Fund Holdings and Stock Market Efficiency

Hedge Fund Holdings and Stock Market Efficiency

Hedge Funds and Corporate Innovation

Using National Bureau of Economics Research patent data and hedge fund holdings in US firms from 1998 to 2006, we examine the effect of hedge fund ownership on corporate innovation. We find that hedge fund ownership increases both patent quantity and quality, even after controlling for endogeneity. Hedge funds appear to increase innovation and firm value by increasing research and development (R&D) productivity and innovation efficiency rather than R&D input. Our study suggests another channel through which hedge funds may enhance firm value, contributing to the literature on hedge fund ownership.