IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cfrwps/0808r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Overconfidence among professional investors: Evidence from mutual fund managers

Author

Listed:
  • Pütz, Alexander
  • Ruenzi, Stefan

Abstract

We examine overconfidence among equity mutual fund managers. While overconfidence has been extensively documented among retail investors, evidence from professional investors is scarce. Consistent with theories of overconfidence, we find that fund managers trade more after good past performance. The higher trading activity after good performance is driven by individual portfolio performance, while the market performance has no significant impact. We rule out some alternative explanations for our results like increased trading as a response to tournament incentives, as a response to inflows, or as a rational reaction due to managerial learning about abilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Pütz, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan, 2010. "Overconfidence among professional investors: Evidence from mutual fund managers," CFR Working Papers 08-08 [rev.], University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cfrwps:0808r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/70117/1/736375740.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael C. Jensen, 1968. "The Performance Of Mutual Funds In The Period 1945–1964," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(2), pages 389-416, May.
    2. Terrance Odean., 1996. "Volume, Volatility, Price and Profit When All Trader Are Above Average," Research Program in Finance Working Papers RPF-266, University of California at Berkeley.
    3. 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.
    4. Kempf, Alexander & Ruenzi, Stefan & Thiele, Tanja, 2009. "Employment risk, compensation incentives, and managerial risk taking: Evidence from the mutual fund industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 92-108, April.
    5. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean & Ning Zhu, 2009. "Do Retail Trades Move Markets?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 151-186, January.
    6. Nicolosi, Gina & Peng, Liang & Zhu, Ning, 2009. "Do individual investors learn from their trading experience?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 317-336, May.
    7. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    8. Edwin J. Elton & Martin J. Gruber & Christopher R. Blake, 2003. "Incentive Fees and Mutual Funds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 779-804, April.
    9. 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.
    10. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1589-1622 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Matthew T. Billett & Yiming Qian, 2008. "Are Overconfident CEOs Born or Made? Evidence of Self-Attribution Bias from Frequent Acquirers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(6), pages 1037-1051, June.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1839-1885 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. David J. Cooper & John H. Kagel, 2005. "Are Two Heads Better Than One? Team versus Individual Play in Signaling Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 477-509, June.
    14. F. E. Brown & Douglas Vickers, 1963. "Mutual Fund Portfolio Activity, Performance, And Market Impact," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 18(2), pages 377-391, May.
    15. Basak, Suleyman & Makarov, Dmitry, 2012. "Difference in interim performance and risk taking with short-sale constraints," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 377-392.
    16. O’Connell, Paul G. J. & Teo, Melvyn, 2009. "Institutional Investors, Past Performance, and Dynamic Loss Aversion," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 155-188, February.
    17. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2007. "Information Cascades: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Financial Market Professionals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 151-180, February.
    18. John A. List & Michael S. Haigh, 2010. "Investment Under Uncertainty: Testing the Options Model with Professional Traders," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 974-984, November.
    19. Alok Kumar, 2009. "Who Gambles in the Stock Market?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1889-1933, August.
    20. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    21. Taylor, Jonathan, 2003. "Risk-taking behavior in mutual fund tournaments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 373-383, March.
    22. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    23. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    24. Martin G. Kocher & Matthias Sutter, 2005. "The Decision Maker Matters: Individual Versus Group Behaviour in Experimental Beauty-Contest Games," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(500), pages 200-223, January.
    25. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    26. Markku Kaustia & Eeva Alho & Vesa Puttonen, 2008. "How Much Does Expertise Reduce Behavioral Biases? The Case of Anchoring Effects in Stock Return Estimates," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 37(3), pages 391-412, September.
    27. Itzhak Ben-David & John R. Graham & Campbell R. Harvey, 2007. "Managerial Overconfidence and Corporate Policies," NBER Working Papers 13711, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Grinblatt, Mark & Han, Bing, 2005. "Prospect theory, mental accounting, and momentum," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 311-339, November.
    29. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    30. Amit Seru & Tyler Shumway & Noah Stoffman, 2010. "Learning by Trading," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 705-739, February.
    31. 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.
    32. Khorana, Ajay, 1996. "Top management turnover An empirical investigation of mutual fund managers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 403-427, March.
    33. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang & Tano Santos, 2001. "Prospect Theory and Asset Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 1-53.
    34. 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.
    35. Hendricks, Darryll & Patel, Jayendu & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1993. "Hot Hands in Mutual Funds: Short-Run Persistence of Relative Performance, 1974-1988," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 93-130, March.
    36. Joshua M. Pollet & Mungo Wilson, 2008. "How Does Size Affect Mutual Fund Behavior?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(6), pages 2941-2969, December.
    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. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Anthony Tay & Jacques Olivier, 2008. "Time-Varying Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Working Papers 10-2008, Singapore Management University, School of Economics, revised Jun 2008.
    3. 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.
    4. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    5. Anthony Tay, 2008. "Time-Varying Incentives in the Mutual Fund Industry," Finance Working Papers 22484, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    6. Chia-Ying Chan & Christine W. Lai & Liang-Chung Lee, 2017. "Strategic Choice of Risk: Evidence from Mutual Fund Families," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 125-163, February.
    7. 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).
    8. Hur, Jungshik & Singh, Vivek, 2019. "How do disposition effect and anchoring bias interact to impact momentum in stock returns?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 238-256.
    9. Gil-Bazo, Javier & Ruiz-Verdú, Pablo, 2006. "Yet another puzzle? the relation between price and performance in the mutual fund industry," DEE - Working Papers. Business Economics. WB wb066519, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.
    10. Cuthbertson, Keith & Nitzsche, Dirk & O'Sullivan, Niall, 2016. "A review of behavioural and management effects in mutual fund performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 162-176.
    11. Andreas Oehler & Julian Schneider, 2023. "Social trading: do signal providers trigger gambling?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1269-1331, May.
    12. Baars, Maren & Mohrschladt, Hannes, 2021. "An alternative behavioral explanation for the MAX effect," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 868-886.
    13. Chen, Tsung-Yu & Chao, Ching-Hsiang & Wu, Zhen-Xing, 2021. "Does the turnover effect matter in emerging markets? Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    14. Eisele, Alexander & Nefedova, Tamara & Parise, Gianpaolo & Peijnenburg, Kim, 2020. "Trading out of sight: An analysis of cross-trading in mutual fund families," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 359-378.
    15. Ping Hu & Jayant Kale & Ajay Subramanian, 2003. "Compensation, Career Concerns, and Relative Risk Choices by Mutual Fund Managers: Theory and Evidence," Levine's Bibliography 666156000000000349, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Clemens Sialm & T. Mandy Tham, 2016. "Spillover Effects in Mutual Fund Companies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(5), pages 1472-1486, May.
    17. Martin Rohleder, 2015. "The Relation between Past Flows and Future Performance: Simple Investment Strategies in the Mutual Fund Sector," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-28, February.
    18. Jin, Liang & Taffler, Richard & Eshraghi, Arman & Tosun, Onur Kemal, 2020. "Fund manager conviction and investment performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Arnold, Marc & Pelster, Matthias & Subrahmanyam, Marti G., 2022. "Attention triggers and investors’ risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 846-875.
    20. Dahm, Laura K. & Sorhage, Christoph, 2015. "Milk or wine: Mutual funds' (dis)economies of life," CFR Working Papers 15-05, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    professional investors; overconfidence; behavioral biases; mutual funds;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:zbw:cfrwps:0808r. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfkoede.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.