IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v57y2002i2p661-693.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leaning for the Tape: Evidence of Gaming Behavior in Equity Mutual Funds

Author

Listed:
  • Mark M. Carhart
  • Ron Kaniel
  • David K. Musto
  • Adam V. Reed

Abstract

We present evidence that fund managers inflate quarter‐end portfolio prices with last‐minute purchases of stocks already held. The magnitude of price inflation ranges from 0.5 percent per year for large‐cap funds to well over 2 percent for small‐cap funds. We find that the cross section of inflation matches the cross section of incentives from the flow/performance relation, that a surge of trading in the quarter's last minutes coincides with a surge in equity prices, and that the inflation is greatest for the stocks held by funds with the most incentive to inflate, controlling for the stocks' size and performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark M. Carhart & Ron Kaniel & David K. Musto & Adam V. Reed, 2002. "Leaning for the Tape: Evidence of Gaming Behavior in Equity Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 661-693, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:57:y:2002:i:2:p:661-693
    DOI: 10.1111/1540-6261.00438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6261.00438
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1540-6261.00438?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. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    2. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1992. "The impact of institutional trading on stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 23-43, August.
    3. Diane Del Guercio & Paula A. Tkac, 2000. "The determinants of the flow of funds of managed portfolios: mutual funds versus pension funds," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2000-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    4. Ippolito, Richard A, 1992. "Consumer Reaction to Measures of Poor Quality: Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 45-70, April.
    5. Degeorge, Francois & Patel, Jayendu & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1999. "Earnings Management to Exceed Thresholds," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(1), pages 1-33, January.
    6. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    7. John M.R. Chalmers & Roger M. Edelen & Gregory B. Kadlec, "undated". "Predictable Changes in NAV: The wildcard option in transacting mutual fund shares," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 08-00, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    8. Ariel, Robert A., 1987. "A monthly effect in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 161-174, March.
    9. Brown, Stephen J & Goetzmann, William N, 1995. "Performance Persistence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 679-698, June.
    10. John M.R. Chalmers & Roger M. Edelen & Gregory B. Kadlec, "undated". "Predictable Changes in NAV: The wildcard option in transacting mutual fund shares," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 8-00, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    11. Lakonishok, Josef & Smidt, Seymour, 1984. "Volume and turn-of-the-year behavior," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 435-455, September.
    12. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    13. Harris, Lawrence, 1989. "A Day-End Transaction Price Anomaly," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 29-45, March.
    14. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1589-1622 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lynch, Anthony W & Mendenhall, Richard R, 1997. "New Evidence on Stock Price Effects Associated with Changes in the S&P 500 Index," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(3), pages 351-383, July.
    16. Russ Wermers, 1999. "Mutual Fund Herding and the Impact on Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 581-622, April.
    17. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    18. Brown, Keith C & Harlow, W V & Starks, Laura T, 1996. "Of Tournaments and Temptations: An Analysis of Managerial Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 85-110, March.
    19. David K. Musto, 1999. "Investment Decisions Depend on Portfolio Disclosures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 935-952, June.
    20. Harris, Lawrence E & Gurel, Eitan, 1986. "Price and Volume Effects Associated with Changes in the S&P 500 List: New Evidence for the Existence of Price Pressures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(4), pages 815-829, September.
    21. 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.
    22. Keim, Donald B., 1983. "Size-related anomalies and stock return seasonality : Further empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 13-32, June.
    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. Mark M. Carhart & Ron Kaniel & David K. Musto & Adam Reed, "undated". "Mutual Fund Returns and Market Microstructure," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 11-99, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    2. 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).
    3. 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).
    4. Palomino, Frederic, 2005. "Relative performance objectives in financial markets," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 351-375, July.
    5. Coval, Joshua & Stafford, Erik, 2007. "Asset fire sales (and purchases) in equity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 479-512, November.
    6. Louis K.C. Chan & Hsiu-Lang Chen & Josef Lakonishok, 1999. "On Mutual Fund Investment Styles," NBER Working Papers 7215, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Christopher Knittel & Jeffrey Heisler & John J. Neumann & Scott Stewart, 2004. "Why Do Institutional Plan Sponsors Hire and Fire their Investment Managers?," Working Papers 527, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    8. 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).
    9. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Christopher Knittel & Jeffrey Heisler & John J. Neumann & Scott Stewart, 2004. "Why Do Institutional Plan Sponsors Hire and Fire their Investment Managers?," Working Papers 1, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    13. Cai, Fang & Han, Song & Li, Dan & Li, Yi, 2019. "Institutional herding and its price impact: Evidence from the corporate bond market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 139-167.
    14. Nerissa C. Brown & Kelsey D. Wei & Russ Wermers, 2014. "Analyst Recommendations, Mutual Fund Herding, and Overreaction in Stock Prices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 1-20, January.
    15. 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.
    16. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Casavecchia, Lorenzo, 2016. "Fund managers' herding and the sensitivity of fund flows to past performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 205-221.
    18. Raphaëlle Bellando, 2008. "Le conflit d'agence dans la gestion déléguée de portefeuille : une revue de littérature," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 118(3), pages 317-339.
    19. Kelsey D. Wei & Russ Wermers & Tong Yao, 2015. "Uncommon Value: The Characteristics and Investment Performance of Contrarian Funds," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2394-2414, October.
    20. Andrew Koch, 2017. "Herd Behavior and Mutual Fund Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3849-3873, November.

    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:jfinan:v:57:y:2002:i:2:p:661-693. 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/afaaaea.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.