Download or read book Three Essays on Hedge Fund Fee Structure Return Smoothing and Gross Performance written by Shuang Feng and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hedge funds feature special compensation structure compared to traditional investments. Previous studies mainly focus on the provisions and incentive structure of hedge fund contract, such as 2/20, hurdle rates, and high-water mark. The first essay develops an algorithm to empirically estimate the monthly fees, fund flows and gross asset values of individual hedge funds. We find that management fee is a major component in the dollar amount of hedge fund total fees, and fund flow is more important in determining the change in fund size compared to net returns, especially when fund is shrinking in size. We also find that best paid hedge funds concentrate in the largest hedge fund quintile. Large funds tend to perform better, earn more, and rely less on management fee for their managers' compensation. Further, we find that fund flow is an important determinant of hedge fund managerial incentives. Together with the "visible" hands of hedge fund management, i.e. the provisions of hedge fund incentive contracts, the "invisible" hands -- fund flows enable investors to effectively impact hedge fund managerial compensation and incentives. The second essay studies the relation between return smoothing and managerial incentives of hedge funds. We use gross returns to estimate both unconditional and conditional return smoothing models. While unconditional return smoothing is a proxy of illiquidity, conditional return smoothing is related to intentional return smoothing and may be used as a first screen for hedge fund fraud. We find that return smoothing is significantly underestimated using net returns, especially for the graveyard funds. We also find that managerial incentives are positively associated with both types of return smoothing. While managers of more illiquid funds tend to earn more incentive fees, funds featuring conditional return smoothing under-perform other funds and do not earn more incentive fees on average. Finally, we find that failed hedge funds feature more illiquidity and conditional return smoothing. The third essay explores the difference between the gross-of-fee and net-of-fee hedge fund performance, by investigating the difference in distribution, factor exposures and alphas between gross returns and net returns. We find that gross returns are distributed significantly differently from net returns. The gross-of-fee alphas are higher than the net-of-fee alphas by about 4% per year on average. We also find positive relation between hedge fund performance and fund size, fund flows, and managerial incentives, which holds for both gross-of-fee performance and net-of-fee performance. Our findings suggest that it is necessary to examine the gross-of-fee performance of hedge funds separately from the net-of-fee performance, which may give us a clearer picture of the risk structure and performance of hedge fund portfolios.
Download or read book Three Essays on Hedge Funds written by Christopher Schwarz and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hedge fund industry and hedge fund related research have grown rapidly in the last decade. In 1990, hedge funds controlled an estimated $39 billion in assets. At the end of 2006, hedge funds had an estimated $1.72 trillion in assets under management. This dissertation consists of three essays exploring the hedge fund industry. In the first essay, I use the recent controversial and ultimately unsuccessful SEC attempt to increase hedge fund disclosure to examine the value of disclosure to investors. By examining SEC mandated disclosures filed by a large number of hedge funds in February 2006, I am able to construct a measure of operational risk distinct from market risk. Leverage and ownership structures as of December 2005 suggest that lenders and hedge fund equity investors were already aware of hedge fund operational risk characteristics. However, operational risk has no effect on the flow-performance relationship, suggesting that investors either lack this information, or they do not regard it as material. In the second essay, I examine hedge fund management and incentive fee structures and changes as well as the use of redemption fees. Overall, I find hedge funds' fee structures are related to their other fund characteristics in a manner consistent with the mutual fund area and previous fee theory. I observe management fees are negatively related to fund characteristics that lower administrative overhead and positively related to tax incentives. Incentive fees are positively correlated with return characteristics that raise the total values of managers' option-like incentive fee contracts. Hedge fund fee changes are found to be a function of pricing power and managers attempting to decrease investor demand in capacity constrained styles while redemption fees are used to protect managers against poor performance. Finally, funds of funds have positively associated incentive and management fees, which create a negative relationship between incentive fees and fund alphas. In the third essay, I examine if hedge fund managers close and reopen funds to investment to preserve performance. While my results show closed hedge funds do experience significantly lower flows, managers' and management companies' primary objective is to hoard assets. Hedge funds in capacity constrained styles do not close more often, do not close at lower relative asset levels and do not reopen at lower relative asset levels. Hedge funds reopen to investment to generate additional fees, not when funds are capable of generating out performance. These results suggest even high performance-pay deltas are not strong enough to overcome additional fees generated from larger amounts of assets. Other monitoring mechanisms are necessary to reduce agency costs for investors.
Download or read book Three Essays on Hedge Funds written by Minli Lian and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hedge funds are favoured by pension funds, institutional investors, and high wealth investors for their flexible investment trading strategies and possible diversification benefits with existing portfolios. The following three research papers help us understand certain hedge fund characteristics by examining fund performance and by making comparisons to other types of investments. The first essay investigates the relationship between hedge fund performance fees and risk adjusted returns. The paper introduces an "effort" variable and reasons that the performance of hedge funds and the payoff of the performance fee contract are endogenously determined by the fund manager's effort. The paper concludes that the performance fee contract aligns the interest of the fund manager and the investor, and creates a win-win risk sharing instead of a risk shifting situation. Empirically, we find that performance fees are positively associated with risk adjusted returns. The second essay examines the hedge fund tail risk in terms of the Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall and compares these measures with those of mutual funds. It also studies the hedge fund tail risk dependence on the stock market index and VIX index as well as the phase-locking effect. The third essay studies the cross-sectional difference between hedge fund style indexes and industry portfolios. It also examines the diversification benefit of investing in a pool of hedge funds.
Download or read book Three Essays on Hedge Fund Fee Contracts Managerial Incentives and Risk Taking Behaviors written by Gong Zhan and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay One: Under the principal-agent framework, we study and compare different compensation schemes commonly adopted by hedge fund and mutual fund managers. We find that the option-like performance fee structure prevalent among hedge funds is suboptimal to the symmetric performance fee structure. However, the use of high water mark (HWM) mitigates the suboptimality, though to a very limited extent. Both our theoretical models and simulation results show that HWM will induce more managerial efforts only when a fund is slightly under the water but it will unfavorably dampen incentives when a fund is too deep under the water and when the manager's skill is poor. Allowing managers to invest personal wealth in their own funds, however, helps align interests and provides positive managerial incentives. Essay Two: Existing literature has detected a "tournament behavior" among mutual fund managers that mid-year underperformers tend to take relatively higher risk than peers in the second half-year. We reexamine this issue and provide empirical evidence that such behavior does not exist among hedge fund managers, either at fund level or risk style level. Instead, hedge fund managers shift risk at mid-year in response to the moneyness of their incentive contracts. Also, risk shifting decisions are more driven by underperformance than by outperformance. HighWater Mark can strongly rein in excess risk-taking and therefore better aligns interests. Last, risk shifting on average does not improve either performance, moneyness of incentive contracts, or cash inflows. Essay Three: We use factor models and optimal change point regression models to capture the intra-year risk dynamics of hedge fund managers. Those risk shifting managers are further divided into 'Informed', 'Uninformed' and 'Misinformed' groups, according to their post-shifting risk adjusted performance. We find evidence that supports the existence of an Adverse Selection' problem of managers compensation schemes. Namely, incentive contracts, designed to share risks and align interests, induce the strongest risk taking from the least informed or skilled hedge fund managers, whose risk-shifting decisions result in undesired or even deteriorated risk-adjusted returns for investors. We also find that the High Water Mark has only limited influence on mitigating excessive risk shifting.
Download or read book Three Essays on Hedge Funds written by Liping Qiu and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Essay 1, we find that, on average, hedge funds decrease leverage prior to the beginning of the financial crisis, with leverage remaining below the pre-crisis levels. We also find that younger funds with lower current leverage and stricter fund governance are more likely to increase leverage following favorable performance; funds exposed to higher risk, higher management fee and higher current leverage tend to delever. Managers increase leverage in order to enhance future performance following superior returns only to be disappointed. We find mixed evidence on the performance difference between levered and unlevered funds, but levered funds do survive longer. In essays 2, we find that the presence of the management companies in their investment region is the most important source of the risk-adjusted performance. The funds with a presence in their investment region outperform other funds by 4.2 % per year. On average, 18% of the emerging market hedge funds have delivered positive and statistically significant alpha. Funds producing significant alphas experience greater capital inflows than the remainder. Have-alpha funds that experience high investor inflows do not have higher probabilities of being classified as beta-only funds nor have worse risk-adjusted returns in the future. In essay 3, we find that historical returns are routinely revised. About two-thirds of the hedge funds in our sample have revised their previously reported performance. On average, more than one-fifth of monthly returns were revised after being first reported. We find that positive revisions significantly outnumber negative revisions to returns of December. We also find an obvious decreasing time trend in both the number and proportion of return revisions, even after adjusting for performance report recency. We find a strong connection between return revisions and desirable fund characteristics such as strong fund governance at the overall fund level, the individual fund level, and the individual revision level. The revised funds outperform unrevised funds after revisions. Our findings suggest that correction may be a plausible explanation for the return revisions in hedge fund performance report. We have not found direct evidence that hedge fund managers manipulate returns.
Download or read book Essays on the Structure Performance and Behavior of Hedge Funds written by Grant Farnsworth and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation contains three essays on the structure of hedge funds and the behavior of hedge fund managers and investors. In the first, I study the dynamics of changes in the leverage choices made by hedge fund managers and the implications for investors. Using SEC and commercial hedge fund database information, I examine the time-series and cross section of hedge fund leverage and find that, overall, hedge fund leverage changes are not driven by certain return-driven motivations, such as levering up before profitable times or in order to take advantage of concentrated investment opportunities. Instead, hedge fund leverage changes are driven primarily by risk mitigation measures, which may be imposed by external actors, such as prime brokers. Hedge funds lever down during volatile times and when risk spreads are high. Interestingly, when hedge fund leverage is perturbed by fund flows, I find no evidence that managers trade to return to a target leverage within four quarters. Thus overall hedge fund leverage may be the result of the fund's flow history, rather than predetermined leverage targets. In the second study, I examine hedge fund inceptions. New hedge funds may come into being because managers observe high demand for certain types of funds and create them to absorb this demand, or alternatively as a result of an innovative investment idea. I create empirical proxies that allow me to distinguish the two types of inceptions and show that funds that came about because of the supply of managerial investment from those that came about because of investor demand. Inceptions of the former type outperform those of the latter by a significant 4 to 5% annually over the first five years. In my third study, I use a special environment, a platform of hedge fund separate accounts, as a laboratory to examine the role of share restrictions and third-party evaluation in hedge fund returns. Separate accounts are tied to existing funds but have much lower share restrictions and feature third-party return evaluation. By comparing separate account and main fund returns for the same funds, I find that a reduction in share restrictions leads to a performance penalty of 1.7% per year. Also, the high liquidity and third party evaluation leads to reported returns that feature 33% less serial correlation. This latter result suggests that managers in the main fund use discretion in reporting practices to induce serial correlation in the reported returns of their main fund, which would lead to artificially good performance in risk-adjusted evaluation metrics for those funds.
Download or read book The World of Hedge Funds written by H. Gifford Fong and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2005 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The World of Hedge Funds is a compendium of distinguished papers focusing on the cutting-edge analysis of hedge funds. This area is arguably the fastest growing source of funds in the investment management arena. It represents an exciting opportunity for the investor and manager in terms of the range of return and risk available. A source of rigorous analysis is therefore both sought after as well as needed. This book aims to fill this gap by presenting an eclectic collection of papers contributed by influential academics and practitioners covering the characteristics and problems of hedge funds.
Download or read book Hedge Funds written by Harold Kent Baker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hedge Funds: Structure, Strategies, and Performance spans the gamut from theoretical to practical coverage of an intriguing but often complex subject and provides insights into the field from leading experts around the world.
Download or read book The Gross Truth About Hedge Fund Performance and Risk written by Chris Brooks and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Factor models are frequently applied to hedge fund returns in an attempt to separate the return from identified risk factors (beta) and from manager skill (alpha). More recently, these same techniques have been used to replicate the returns from hedge fund strategies with varying degrees of success. In this paper, we show that due to the particular nature of hedge fund incentive contracts, the use of net of fee returns can lead to considerably biased estimates of factor exposures which can distort the picture of fund manager performance. The solution we propose is to model the gross returns of hedge funds and the incentive fees independently, which gives a truer representation of the underlying return generating process. Using a large sample of hedge funds, we quantify the effect of this bias on both performance attribution and replication. We find that using net of fee returns understates the return attributable to beta by up to 58 basis points per annum. Following from this we find that some of the additional beta exposure can be captured by basing replication on gross rather than net returns. We also investigate the risk taking behaviour of fund managers conditional upon the delta of their incentive option and find that contrary to previous studies, there does appear to be evidence of increased risk taking for those managers who find themselves significantly below their high water mark.
Download or read book Hedge Funds written by Greg N. Gregoriou and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-09-10 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether already experienced with hedge funds or just thinking about investing in them, readers need a firm understanding of this unique investment vehicle in order to achieve maximum success. Hedge Funds unites over thirty of the top practitioners and academics in the hedge fund industry to provide readers with the latest findings in this field. Their analysis deals with a variety of topics, from new methods of performance evaluation to portfolio allocation and risk/return matters. Although some of the information is technical in nature, an understanding and applicability of the results as well as theoretical developments are stressed. Filled with in-depth insight and expert advice, Hedge Funds helps readers make the most of this flexible investment vehicle.
Download or read book Three Essays in Financial Economics written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hedge Fund Structure Regulation and Performance around the World written by Douglas Cumming and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-25 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses data from a multitude of countries to explain how and why hedge fund markets differ around the world. The authors consider international differences in hedge fund regulation which include, but are not limited to, minimum capitalization requirements, restrictions on the location of key service providers, and different permissible distribution channels via private placements, banks, other regulated or non-regulated financial intermediaries, wrappers, investment managers and fund distribution companies.
Download or read book Three Essays on Hedge Fund Returns Risk and Money Flows written by Serge Patrick Amvella Motaze and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fund of Funds Investing written by Daniel A. Strachman and published by John Wiley and Sons. This book was released on 2009-11-13 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Valuable guidance on fund of funds investing While capital markets have become more complex, investors are still looking to increase portfolio performance without increasing risk. Fund of funds investing is one such avenue to pursue. This practical guide provides you with the tools needed to understand and evaluate your investments in this often opaque area of finance. In Fund of Funds Investing, hedge fund expert Daniel Strachman and fund of funds manager Richard Bookbinder offer valuable insights into this world through an industry overview and review of essential issues including due diligence, risk and portfolio management, and multi-strategy funds. Outlines strategies that will help you invest directly in a wide range of hedge funds Other titles by Strachman: The Fundamentals of Hedge Fund Management, Essential Stock Picking Strategies, The Long and Short of Hedge Funds, Julian Robertson, and Getting Started in Hedge Funds, Second Edition Based on extensive interviews by the authors as well as their experiences in this field Funds of Funds Investing is an important guide to one of the most misunderstood areas of modern finance.
Download or read book The Performance of Hedge Funds Risk Return and Incentives written by Patrick Vogel and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-04-28 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2007 im Fachbereich BWL - Allgemeines, Note: 1,3, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (Lehrstuhl für Volkswirtschaftswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere Industrieökonomie Prof. Dr. Uwe Walz), Veranstaltung: Wettbewerbspolitik und Regulierung von Finanzintermediären, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Die vorliegende Seminararbeit befasst sich, auf Basis des von Ackermann, McEnally und Ravenscraft (Ackermann et al.) verfassten Artikels „The Performance of Hedge Funds: Risk, Return, and Incentives“, mit der Analyse der Performance von Hedge Funds. Im Rahmen dieses Artikels werden Untersuchungen der Performance-Komponenten, Rendite und Risiko, mit Hilfe statistischer Verfahren beschrieben und deren Ergebnisse dargestellt. Ziel dieser Untersuchungen war es zum einen zu erforschen, ob Hedge Funds in der Lage sind den Markt bzw. vergleichbare Anlageformen konstant zu übertreffen. Hierfür wurden Performance-Vergleiche zwischen Hedge Funds und repräsentativen Marktindices bzw. Mutual Funds vorgenommen. Zum anderen sollte der Einfluss bestimmter Hedge Funds Eigenschaften auf die Performance erforscht werden. Diese Zusammenhänge wurden mittels einer multiplen Regression analysiert. Der Artikel von Ackermann et al. geht neben der Vorgehensweise und den Resultate der Untersuchungen auch auf möglicherweise auftretende Probleme und systematische Messfehler der Analyse von Hedge Funds Daten ein. In der vorliegenden Seminararbeit sollen die wichtigsten Gesichtspunkte des Artikels wiedergeben werden. Es wird daher in Kapitel 2 zunächst ein kurzer Überblick über die Anlageform Hedge Funds gegeben, bevor in Kapitel 3 auf die statistischen Untersuchungen von Ackermann et al. näher eingegangen wird. In Kapitel 4 sollen dann die Resultate der Untersuchungen vorgestellt und kurz mögliche Interpretationen dargestellt werden. Anschließend werden in Kapitel 5 die systematischen Messfehler, welche bei der Analyse von Hedge Funds Daten auftreten können, erläutert und deren mögliche Einflussnahme auf die Untersuchungen analysiert. Abschließend liefert Kapitel 6 eine Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten Aspekte der vorliegenden Seminararbeit. In diesem Kapitel soll eine kurze Beschreibung von Hedge Funds sowie eine Einordnung in einen Agency-theoretischen Kontext erfolgen. Im Allgemeinen versteht man unter einem Funds das von Investoren bereitgestellte Kapital, welches von einem Fundsmanager im Rahmen der gesetzlichen Regelungen und der ihm zur Verfügungen stehenden Möglichkeiten zum Zwecke der Vermögensmehrung angelegt wird. Den Namen „hedge“ Funds verdankt diese alternative Anlageform der Grundidee des Absicherns von Wertpapiergeschäften, welche hinter der Auflegung des ersten Hedge Funds 1949 durch A.W. Jones steckte.
Download or read book Hedge Fund Investing written by Kevin R. Mirabile and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-01-07 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most up-to-date look at how to understand, and invest in, hedge funds A new updated set of end of chapter problems and test bank questions is now available for the first edition. This material now includes a selection of supplemental problems and test bank questions specifically related to portfolio financing tools and techniques. Hedge funds are an essential part of the alternative investing arena, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. It's important that those investing, or thinking about investing, with hedge funds know exactly what they are about. That's why Kevin Mirabile—a financial professional with over twenty years of business development, regulatory, financing, trading, and sales experience in the hedge fund sector—has created Understanding Hedge Fund Investing. Page-by-page, this reliable resource offers valuable insights into one of the most competitive parts of the investment world. Along the way, you'll become familiar with the evolution of hedge funds and their structure as well as discover what types of individuals and institutions invest using hedge funds. Mirable also takes the time to examine the risks of investing in hedge funds and talks about hedge fund financial statements and taxation. Provides complete coverage of this important investment vehicle, from its different types of investing strategies and styles to what it takes to be a hedge fund manager Multiple-choice questions follow each chapter to assess your comprehension of the topics covered A companion Website contains portfolio models that can be uploaded for use as well as supplementary material that allows you to learn in a hands-on fashion long after closing the book Hedge funds offer investors opportunities that aren't usually found elsewhere. But to benefit from them, you first must understand them. This book has the information you need to succeed at this difficult endeavor.
Download or read book Evaluating Hedge Fund and CTA Performance written by Greg N. Gregoriou and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2005-05-06 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) -- a quantitative approach to assess the performance of hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, and commmodity trading advisors. Steep yourself in this approach with this important new book by Greg Gregoriou and Joe Zhu. "This book steps beyond the traditional trade-off between single variables for risk and return in the determination of investment portfolios. For the first time, a comprehensive procedure is presented to compose portfolios using multiple measures of risk and return simultaneously. This approach represents a watershed in portfolio construction techniques and is especially useful for hedge fund and CTA offerings." -- Richard E. Oberuc, CEO, Burlington Hall Asset Management, Inc. Chairman, Foundation for Managed Derivatives Research Order your copy today!
