IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v46y2008i1p1-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Mutual Funds Profit from the Accruals Anomaly?

Author

Listed:
  • ASHIQ ALI
  • XUANJUAN CHEN
  • TONG YAO
  • TONG YU

Abstract

Using data on both fund stockholdings and fund returns, we examine whether actively managed equity mutual funds trade on and profit from the accruals anomaly. We find that few, if any, mutual funds trade on the anomaly. The top 10% of mutual funds that have the highest portfolio weights in low‐accruals stocks have a greater, but still relatively small, exposure to low‐accruals stocks. Nonetheless, these funds make significant profit net of actual transaction costs, exhibiting an average Fama‐French three‐factor alpha of 2.83% per year. We also find that these funds are smaller, less diversified, and exhibit higher fund return volatility and higher fund flow volatility.

Suggested Citation

  • Ashiq Ali & Xuanjuan Chen & Tong Yao & Tong Yu, 2008. "Do Mutual Funds Profit from the Accruals Anomaly?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 1-26, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:46:y:2008:i:1:p:1-26
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2007.00263.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2007.00263.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2007.00263.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Performance Measurement without Benchmarks: An Examination of Mutual Fund Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(1), pages 47-68, January.
    2. Paul A. Gompers & Andrew Metrick, 2001. "Institutional Investors and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 229-259.
    3. Russ Wermers, 2000. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Empirical Decomposition into Stock-Picking Talent, Style, Transactions Costs, and Expenses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1655-1703, August.
    4. Zhiwu Chen & Werner Stanzl & Masahiro Watanabe, 2002. "Price Impact Costs and the Limit of Arbitrage," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm251, Yale School of Management, revised 08 Jun 2006.
    5. Randolph B. Cohen & Joshua D. Coval & Ľuboš Pástor, 2005. "Judging Fund Managers by the Company They Keep," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1057-1096, June.
    6. Baruch Lev & Doron Nissim, 2006. "The Persistence of the Accruals Anomaly," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(1), pages 193-226, March.
    7. Erik R. Sirri & Peter Tufano, 1998. "Costly Search and Mutual Fund Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1589-1622, October.
    8. Daniel, Kent, et al, 1997. "Measuring Mutual Fund Performance with Characteristic-Based Benchmarks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1035-1058, July.
    9. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan D, 1989. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Analysis of Quarterly Portfolio Holdings," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(3), pages 393-416, July.
    10. Keim, Donald B. & Madhavan, Ananth, 1997. "Transactions costs and investment style: an inter-exchange analysis of institutional equity trades," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 265-292, December.
    11. Jonathan B. Berk & Richard C. Green, 2004. "Mutual Fund Flows and Performance in Rational Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1269-1295, December.
    12. Arthur Kraft & Andrew J. Leone & Charles Wasley, 2006. "An Analysis of the Theories and Explanations Offered for the Mispricing of Accruals and Accrual Components," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 297-339, May.
    13. Konan Chan & Louis K. C. Chan & Narasimhan Jegadeesh & Josef Lakonishok, 2006. "Earnings Quality and Stock Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(3), pages 1041-1082, May.
    14. Josef Lakonishok & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1992. "The Structure and Performance of the Money Management Industry," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1992 Micr), pages 339-391.
    15. Kothari, S. P. & Sabino, Jowell S. & Zach, Tzachi, 2005. "Implications of survival and data trimming for tests of market efficiency," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 129-161, February.
    16. Jiang, George J. & Yao, Tong & Yu, Tong, 2007. "Do mutual funds time the market? Evidence from portfolio holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(3), pages 724-758, December.
    17. John E. Core, 2006. "Discussion of An Analysis of the Theories and Explanations Offered for the Mispricing of Accruals and Accrual Components," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 341-350, May.
    18. David Hirshleifer & Kewei Hou & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "The Accrual Anomaly: Risk or Mispricing?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 320-335, February.
    19. Russ Wermers, 2000. "Mutual Fund Performance: An Empirical Decomposition into Stock‐Picking Talent, Style, Transactions Costs, and Expenses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1655-1695, August.
    20. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    21. Marcin Kacperczyk & Clemens Sialm & Lu Zheng, 2005. "On the Industry Concentration of Actively Managed Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1983-2011, August.
    22. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan & Wermers, Russ, 1995. "Momentum Investment Strategies, Portfolio Performance, and Herding: A Study of Mutual Fund Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1088-1105, December.
    23. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    24. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    25. Shumway, Tyler, 1997. "The Delisting Bias in CRSP Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 327-340, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lan, Chunhua & Moneta, Fabio & Wermers, Russ, 2018. "Holding Horizon: A New Measure of Active Investment Management," CFR Working Papers 15-06, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR), revised 2018.
    2. Agarwal, Vikas & Gay, Gerald D. & Ling, Leng, 2012. "Performance inconsistency in mutual funds: An investigation of window-dressing behavior," CFR Working Papers 11-07 [rev.], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    3. Agarwal, Vikas & Gay, Gerald D. & Ling, Leng, 2011. "Window dressing in mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 11-07, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    4. Agarwal, Vikas & Gay, Gerald D. & Ling, Leng, 2013. "Window dressing in mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 11-07 [rev.2], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    5. Agarwal, Vikas & Gay, Gerald D. & Ling, Leng, 2014. "Window dressing in mutual funds," CFR Working Papers 11-07 [rev.3], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    6. Lee, Jaeram & Jeon, Hyunglae & Kang, Jangkoo & Lee, Changjun, 2020. "Do actively managed mutual funds exploit stock market mispricing?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    7. Russ Wermers & Tong Yao & Jane Zhao, 2012. "Forecasting Stock Returns Through an Efficient Aggregation of Mutual Fund Holdings," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(12), pages 3490-3529.
    8. Jiang, Hao & Verardo, Michela, 2013. "Does herding behavior reveal skill? An analysis of mutual fund performance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119034, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Ferson, Wayne & Mo, Haitao, 2016. "Performance measurement with selectivity, market and volatility timing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 93-110.
    10. Mikhail Simutin, 2014. "Cash Holdings and Mutual Fund Performance," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(4), pages 1425-1464.
    11. Ferson, Wayne E., 2013. "Investment Performance: A Review and Synthesis," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 969-1010, Elsevier.
    12. Hao Jiang & Michela Verardo, "undated". "Does herding behavior reveal skill? An analysis of mutual fund performance," FMG Discussion Papers dp720, Financial Markets Group.
    13. Lewellen, Jonathan, 2011. "Institutional investors and the limits of arbitrage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 62-80, October.
    14. Wermers, Russ & Yao, Tong & Zhao, Jane, 2007. "The investment value of mutual fund portfolio disclosure," CFR Working Papers 06-09, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    15. Hung, Pi-Hsia & Lien, Donald & Kuo, Ming-Sin, 2020. "Window dressing in equity mutual funds," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 338-354.
    16. Hunter, David & Kandel, Eugene & Kandel, Shmuel & Wermers, Russ, 2009. "Endogenous benchmarks," CFR Working Papers 10-02, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    17. Agarwal, Vikas & Mullally, Kevin & Tang, Yuehua & Yang, Baozhong, 2013. "Mandatory portfolio disclosure, stock liquidity, and mutual fund performance," CFR Working Papers 13-04, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    18. Laurent Barras & Olivier Scaillet & Russ Wermers, 2010. "False Discoveries in Mutual Fund Performance: Measuring Luck in Estimated Alphas," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 179-216, February.
    19. Marcin Kacperczyk & Clemens Sialm & Lu Zheng, 2008. "Unobserved Actions of Mutual Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(6), pages 2379-2416, November.
    20. Verbeek, Marno & Wang, Yu, 2013. "Better than the original? The relative success of copycat funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3454-3471.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:46:y:2008:i:1:p:1-26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-8456 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.