IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/finmgt/v49y2020i4p877-896.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predicting hedge fund performance when fund returns are skewed

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea J. Heuson
  • Mark C. Hutchinson
  • Alok Kumar

Abstract

We show that fund‐specific return skewness is associated with managerial skill and future hedge fund performance. Specifically, skewness in fund returns reflects managerial skill in avoiding large drawdowns. Using a new measure of investment skill that accounts for this managerial ability, we demonstrate that traditional performance measures underestimate (overestimate) managerial performance when returns exhibit positive (negative) fund‐specific skewness. Our new measure is particularly valuable during periods of economic crisis, when the annual risk‐adjusted outperformance is 5.5%.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea J. Heuson & Mark C. Hutchinson & Alok Kumar, 2020. "Predicting hedge fund performance when fund returns are skewed," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(4), pages 877-896, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:finmgt:v:49:y:2020:i:4:p:877-896
    DOI: 10.1111/fima.12304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/fima.12304
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/fima.12304?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. Hsiao,Cheng & Morimune,Kimio & Powell,James L. (ed.), 2001. "Nonlinear Statistical Modeling," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521662468, November.
    2. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    3. Getmansky, Mila & Lo, Andrew W. & Makarov, Igor, 2004. "An econometric model of serial correlation and illiquidity in hedge fund returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 529-609, December.
    4. Ravi Jagannathan & Alexey Malakhov & Dmitry Novikov, 2010. "Do Hot Hands Exist among Hedge Fund Managers? An Empirical Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 217-255, February.
    5. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Caglayan, Mustafa O., 2014. "Macroeconomic risk and hedge fund returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 1-19.
    6. Kerry Back & Alan D Crane & Kevin Crotty, 2018. "Skewness Consequences of Seeking Alpha," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(12), pages 4720-4761.
    7. Andrea Buraschi & Robert Kosowski & Worrawat Sritrakul, 2014. "Incentives and Endogenous Risk Taking: A Structural View on Hedge Fund Alphas," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2819-2870, December.
    8. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Caglayan, Mustafa Onur, 2011. "Do hedge funds' exposures to risk factors predict their future returns?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 36-68, July.
    9. Agarwal, Vikas & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naik, Narayan Y., 2009. "Role of managerial incentives and discretion in hedge fund performance," CFR Working Papers 04-04, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    10. Sarno, Lucio & Taylor, Mark P., 1999. "Moral hazard, asset price bubbles, capital flows, and the East Asian crisis:: the first tests," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 637-657, August.
    11. Avramov, Doron & Barras, Laurent & Kosowski, Robert, 2013. "Hedge Fund Return Predictability Under the Magnifying Glass," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(4), pages 1057-1083, August.
    12. Im, Kyung So & Schmidt, Peter, 2008. "More efficient estimation under non-normality when higher moments do not depend on the regressors, using residual augmented least squares," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 219-233, May.
    13. Jonathan Ingersoll & Ivo Welch, 2007. "Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measures," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1503-1546, 2007 17.
    14. Gaia Garino & Lucio Sarno, 2004. "Speculative Bubbles in U.K. House Prices: Some New Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(4), pages 777-795, April.
    15. William Fung & David A. Hsieh & Narayan Y. Naik & Tarun Ramadorai, 2008. "Hedge Funds: Performance, Risk, and Capital Formation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1777-1803, August.
    16. Glode, Vincent, 2011. "Why mutual funds "underperform"," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 546-559, March.
    17. Fung, William & Hsieh, David A, 2001. "The Risk in Hedge Fund Strategies: Theory and Evidence from Trend Followers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 313-341.
    18. Agarwal, Vikas & Bakshi, Gurdip & Huij, Joop, 2009. "Do higher-moment equity risks explain hedge fund returns?," CFR Working Papers 10-07, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    19. Barber, Brad M. & Lyon, John D., 1997. "Detecting long-run abnormal stock returns: The empirical power and specification of test statistics," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 341-372, March.
    20. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Caglayan, Mustafa Onur, 2012. "Systematic risk and the cross section of hedge fund returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 114-131.
    21. McDonald, James B. & Newey, Whitney K., 1988. "Partially Adaptive Estimation of Regression Models via the Generalized T Distribution," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 428-457, December.
    22. Aragon, George O., 2007. "Share restrictions and asset pricing: Evidence from the hedge fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 33-58, January.
    23. Newey, Whitney K., 1988. "Adaptive estimation of regression models via moment restrictions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 301-339, July.
    24. Barroso, Pedro & Santa-Clara, Pedro, 2015. "Momentum has its moments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 111-120.
    25. Vikas Agarwal & Naveen D. Daniel & Narayan Y. Naik, 2009. "Role of Managerial Incentives and Discretion in Hedge Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2221-2256, October.
    26. Dell'Aquila, Rosario & Ronchetti, Elvezio & Trojani, Fabio, 2003. "Robust GMM analysis of models for the short rate process," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 373-397, May.
    27. Nicolas P.B. Bollen & Veronika K. Pool, 2009. "Do Hedge Fund Managers Misreport Returns? Evidence from the Pooled Distribution," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 2257-2288, October.
    28. Robert Kosowski & Allan Timmermann & Russ Wermers & Hal White, 2006. "Can Mutual Fund “Stars” Really Pick Stocks? New Evidence from a Bootstrap Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(6), pages 2551-2595, December.
    29. Mustafa Onur Caglayan & Sevan Ulutas, 2014. "Emerging Market Exposures and the Predictability of Hedge Fund Returns," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(1), pages 149-180, March.
    30. Jennifer Conrad & Robert F. Dittmar & Eric Ghysels, 2013. "Ex Ante Skewness and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(1), pages 85-124, February.
    31. Gallagher, Liam A. & Taylor, Mark P., 2000. "Measuring the temporary component of stock prices: robust multivariate analysis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 193-200, May.
    32. Vikas Agarwal & Naveen D. Daniel & Narayan Y. Naik, 2011. "Do Hedge Funds Manage Their Reported Returns?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(10), pages 3281-3320.
    33. Chan, Louis K. C. & Lakonishok, Josef, 1992. "Robust Measurement of Beta Risk," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 265-282, June.
    34. Kadan, Ohad & Liu, Fang, 2014. "Performance evaluation with high moments and disaster risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 131-155.
    35. Gupta, Anurag & Liang, Bing, 2005. "Do hedge funds have enough capital? A value-at-risk approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 219-253, July.
    36. Taylor, Mark P. & Peel, David A., 1998. "Periodically collapsing stock price bubbles: a robust test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 221-228, November.
    37. Kosowski, Robert & Naik, Narayan Y. & Teo, Melvyn, 2007. "Do hedge funds deliver alpha? A Bayesian and bootstrap analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 229-264, April.
    38. Avramov, Doron & Kosowski, Robert & Naik, Narayan Y. & Teo, Melvyn, 2011. "Hedge funds, managerial skill, and macroeconomic variables," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 672-692, March.
    39. Liang, Bing & Park, Hyuna, 2010. "Predicting Hedge Fund Failure: A Comparison of Risk Measures," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 199-222, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aiken, Adam L. & Kang, Minjeong, 2023. "Hedge fund manager timing and selectivity skill over time. A holdings-based estimate," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PB).
    2. Yu, Bin & Shen, Yifan & Jin, Xuejun & Xu, Qi, 2022. "Does prospect theory explain mutual fund performance? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    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. Andrew W. Lo & Mila Getmansky & Peter A. Lee, 2015. "Hedge Funds: A Dynamic Industry in Transition," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 483-577, December.
    2. Agarwal, Vikas & Ruenzi, Stefan & Weigert, Florian, 2017. "Tail risk in hedge funds: A unique view from portfolio holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(3), pages 610-636.
    3. Agarwal, Vikas & Green, Tracy Clifton & Ren, Honglin, 2017. "Alpha or beta in the eye of the beholder: What drives hedge fund flows?," CFR Working Papers 15-08, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR), revised 2017.
    4. Andrew J. Patton & Tarun Ramadorai, 2013. "On the High-Frequency Dynamics of Hedge Fund Risk Exposures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(2), pages 597-635, April.
    5. Agarwal, Vikas & Green, T. Clifton & Ren, Honglin, 2018. "Alpha or beta in the eye of the beholder: What drives hedge fund flows?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(3), pages 417-434.
    6. Benoît Dewaele, 2013. "Portfolio Optimization for Hedge Funds through Time-Varying Coefficients," Working Papers CEB 13-032, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Canepa, Alessandra & de la O. González, María & Skinner, Frank S., 2020. "Hedge fund strategies: A non-parametric analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    8. Jun Duanmu & Yongjia Li & Alexey Malakhov, 2020. "Capturing hedge fund risk factor exposures: Hedge fund return replication with ETFs," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 405-431, August.
    9. Yong Chen & Bing Han & Jing Pan, 2021. "Sentiment Trading and Hedge Fund Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(4), pages 2001-2033, August.
    10. Vikas Agarwal & Stefan Ruenzi & Florian Weigert, 2018. "Unobserved Performance of Hedge Funds," Working Papers on Finance 1825, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    11. Benoît Dewaele, 2013. "Leverage and Alpha: The Case of Funds of Hedge Funds," Working Papers CEB 13-033, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Caglayan, Mustafa O., 2014. "Macroeconomic risk and hedge fund returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 1-19.
    13. Guillermo Baquero & Marno Verbeek, 2022. "Hedge Fund Flows and Performance Streaks: How Investors Weigh Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4151-4172, June.
    14. Bali, Turan G. & Weigert, Florian, 2021. "Hedge funds and the positive idiosyncratic volatility effect," CFR Working Papers 21-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    15. El Kalak, Izidin & Azevedo, Alcino & Hudson, Robert, 2016. "Reviewing the hedge funds literature II: Hedge funds' returns and risk management characteristics," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 55-66.
    16. Zheng Sun & Ashley W. Wang & Lu Zheng, 2016. "Only Winners in Tough Times Repeat: Hedge Fund Performance Persistence over Different Market Conditions," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2016-030, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Hwang, Inchang & Xu, Simon & In, Francis & Kim, Tong Suk, 2017. "Systemic risk and cross-sectional hedge fund returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 109-130.
    18. Wilkens, Marco & Yao, Juan & Jeyasreedharan, Nagaratnam & Oehler, Patrick, 2013. "Measuring the performance of hedge funds using two-stage peer group benchmarks," Working Papers 2013-18, University of Tasmania, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, revised 01 Jun 2013.
    19. Turan G. Bali & Florian Weigert, 2018. "Have Hedge Funds Solved the Idiosyncratic Volatility Puzzle?," Working Papers on Finance 1827, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    20. Charles Cao & Grant Farnsworth & Hong Zhang, 2021. "The Economics of Hedge Fund Startups: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1427-1469, June.

    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:finmgt:v:49:y:2020:i:4:p:877-896. 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fmaaaea.html .

    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.