Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: Evidence from Mutual Funds Around the World

We study the trading performance of actively-managed mutual funds from 16 domicile countries investing in 42 equity markets over the period 2001-2014. In the aggregate, funds achieve particularly poor returns in U.S. equity: after adjusting for style, the stocks they buy underperform those they sell by 0.61% per quarter. In non-U.S. equity, mutual fund trades achieve a gross quarterly return of only 0.19%, which appears small relative to trading costs in international markets. The relative size of the active mutual fund industry and the tendency of mutual funds to trade in herds contribute to their poor trading performance. Using the U.S. market as an important case with a longer time series and richer information, we find further supporting evidence.

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