Effectiveness of Investing in US Mutual Funds

Student: Polinov Nikita

Educational Programme: Corporate Finance (Master)

Year of Graduation: 2019

This paper examines the performance of US open-end actively managed equity mutual funds grouped by their investing focus. There are two main parts of this work. In the first one, to underline best-performing mutual fund groups, I measure and make a comparative analysis of the performance of 5 different mutual fund types, namely, high-tech, non-high-tech, cap-based, style-based and regional mutual funds. In the second one, I test the influence of individual mutual fund characteristics on their performance and investigate the selected mutual fund types for the existence of Smart Money Effect. My evidence suggests that investing in high-tech and style-based funds implies the highest and positive return on average. Moreover, the influence of the determinants of mutual fund performance is sensitive to the nature of fund investing style. All the categories of mutual funds demonstrate the existence of Smart Money Effect.

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