IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v22y2009i7p2295-2330.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are "Market Neutral" Hedge Funds Really Market Neutral?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew J. Patton

Abstract

Using a variety of different definitions of "neutrality," this study presents significant evidence against the neutrality to market risk of hedge funds in a range of style categories. I generalize standard definitions of "market neutrality," and propose five different neutrality concepts. I suggest statistical tests for each neutrality concept, and apply these tests to a database of monthly returns on 1423 hedge funds from five style categories. For the "market neutral" style, approximately one-quarter of the funds exhibit significant exposure to market risk; this proportion is statistically significantly different from zero, but less than the proportion of significant exposures for other hedge fund styles. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew J. Patton, 2009. "Are "Market Neutral" Hedge Funds Really Market Neutral?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(7), pages 2295-2330, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:22:y:2009:i:7:p:2295-2330
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhn113
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Mitchell & Todd Pulvino, 2001. "Characteristics of Risk and Return in Risk Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2135-2175, December.
    2. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert, 2002. "International Asset Allocation With Regime Shifts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 1137-1187.
    3. Andrews, Donald W K, 1991. "Asymptotic Normality of Series Estimators for Nonparametric and Semiparametric Regression Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 307-345, March.
    4. Chapman, David A, 1997. "Approximating the Asset Pricing Kernel," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1383-1410, September.
    5. Xiaohong Chen & Xiaotong Shen, 1998. "Sieve Extremum Estimates for Weakly Dependent Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(2), pages 289-314, March.
    6. Fung, William & Hsieh, David A., 1999. "A primer on hedge funds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 309-331, September.
    7. Bollerslev, Tim & Engle, Robert F & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M, 1988. "A Capital Asset Pricing Model with Time-Varying Covariances," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 116-131, February.
    8. Bansal, Ravi & Viswanathan, S, 1993. "No Arbitrage and Arbitrage Pricing: A New Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1231-1262, September.
    9. Kee-Hong Bae & G. Andrew Karolyi & René M. Stulz, 2003. "A New Approach to Measuring Financial Contagion," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 717-763, July.
    10. Ang, Andrew & Chen, Joseph, 2002. "Asymmetric correlations of equity portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 443-494, March.
    11. Carl Ackermann & Richard McEnally & David Ravenscraft, 1999. "The Performance of Hedge Funds: Risk, Return, and Incentives," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 833-874, June.
    12. 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.
    13. Campbell R. Harvey & Akhtar Siddique, 2000. "Conditional Skewness in Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1263-1295, June.
    14. Kraus, Alan & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1976. "Skewness Preference and the Valuation of Risk Assets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1085-1100, September.
    15. Harvey, Campbell R., 1989. "Time-varying conditional covariances in tests of asset pricing models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 289-317.
    16. 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.
    17. Luc Bauwens & Sébastien Laurent & Jeroen V. K. Rombouts, 2006. "Multivariate GARCH models: a survey," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(1), pages 79-109, January.
    18. Dimitris Politis & Halbert White, 2004. "Automatic Block-Length Selection for the Dependent Bootstrap," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 53-70.
    19. Robert F. Dittmar, 2002. "Nonlinear Pricing Kernels, Kurtosis Preference, and Evidence from the Cross Section of Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 369-403, February.
    20. Shanken, Jay, 1990. "Intertemporal asset pricing : An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 99-120.
    21. 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.
    22. Bansal, Ravi & Hsieh, David A & Viswanathan, S, 1993. "A New Approach to International Arbitrage Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1719-1747, December.
    23. Fung, William & Hsieh, David A, 1997. "Empirical Characteristics of Dynamic Trading Strategies: The Case of Hedge Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(2), pages 275-302.
    24. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. Ying Li & Hossein Kazemi, 2007. "Conditional Properties of Hedge Funds: Evidence from Daily Returns," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 13(2), pages 211-238, March.
    3. Nicole M. Boyson & Christof W. Stahel & Rene M. Stulz, 2006. "Is There Hedge Fund Contagion?," NBER Working Papers 12090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Guedhami, Omrane & Sy, Oumar, 2005. "Does conditional market skewness resolve the puzzling market risk-return relationship?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-5), pages 582-598, September.
    5. Gregory Connor & Lisa R. Goldberg & Robert A. Korajczyk, 2010. "Portfolio Risk Analysis," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9224.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Ewelina Sokołowska, 2017. "Does growing wealth influence hedge funds’ development? An empirical analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 756-768, February.
    9. Zhenyu Wang & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "Empirical evaluation of asset pricing models: arbitrage and pricing errors over contingent claims," Staff Reports 265, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    10. Carol Alexander & Anca Dimitriu, 2005. "Detecting Switching Strategies in Equity Hedge Funds," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2005-07, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    11. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Caglayan, Mustafa O., 2019. "Upside potential of hedge funds as a predictor of future performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 212-229.
    12. Nucera, Federico & Valente, Giorgio, 2013. "Carry trades and the performance of currency hedge funds," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 407-425.
    13. Cao, Charles & Chen, Yong & Liang, Bing & Lo, Andrew W., 2013. "Can hedge funds time market liquidity?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 493-516.
    14. Paul Karehnke & Frans de Roon, 2020. "Spanning Tests for Assets with Option-Like Payoffs: The Case of Hedge Funds," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5969-5989, December.
    15. Funga, William & Hsiehb, David A., 2013. "Hedge Funds," 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 1063-1125, Elsevier.
    16. G. Hübner & M. Lambert & N. Papageorgiou, 2015. "Higher†moment Risk Exposures in Hedge Funds," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 21(2), pages 236-264, March.
    17. Nicole M. Boyson & Christof W. Stahel & René M. Stulz, 2010. "Hedge Fund Contagion and Liquidity Shocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1789-1816, October.
    18. 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.
    19. Martin Eling, 2009. "Does Hedge Fund Performance Persist? Overview and New Empirical Evidence," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(2), pages 362-401, March.
    20. Boyson, Nicole M. & Stahel, Christof W. & Stulz, Rene, 2008. "Hedge Fund Contagion and Liquidity," Working Paper Series 2008-8, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G19 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Other

    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:oup:rfinst:v:22:y:2009:i:7:p:2295-2330. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.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.