Answer:
Explanation:
The fund market has grown substantially during the past decades and the majority of
Swedish citizens are invested in funds directly or through pension savings. There is mixed
evidence on the performance of Swedish equity funds depending on the method employed
and the time period studied. In this study, we set out to estimate abnormal performance
using acknowledged methods during a time-period that is both longer and more recent than
previous studies.
Our sample is survivorship-free and consists of 150 mutual equity funds during January
1993 to December 2011. We use a four-factor model to estimate abnormal performance
compared to an index and additional risk factors. We find that the average performance is
neutral net of costs and that funds outperform with 1.7 percent before costs, the difference
is approximately the average management fee. Over time, we find that the average
abnormal performance and the share of funds that have significant outperformance have
decreased while the share of significant underperformance has increased.
Since the study of fund performance started in the 1960's the twin questions has been; does
funds outperform the market and is this a result of pure chance or are managers skilled?
Since we observe funds with significant positive and negative abnormal performance, we
want to know if the results can attributed to luck or skill. We employ the latest technique, a
bootstrap simulation, to test for skill or luck. This is the first study to employ the bootstrap
to distinguish skill from luck in sample of Swedish funds. By ranking funds on
performance after costs, we find that the performance of the majority of funds can be
attributed to skill or "bad skill". The evidence is strongest in the top 95th percentile and
above, and from the bottom 50th percentile and below
