Luck Versus Skill in the Cross Section of Mutual Fund Returns

43 Pages Posted: 10 Mar 2009 Last revised: 8 Feb 2010

See all articles by Eugene F. Fama

Eugene F. Fama

University of Chicago - Finance

Kenneth R. French

Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: December 14, 2009

Abstract

The aggregate portfolio of U.S. equity mutual funds is close to the market portfolio, but the high costs of active management show up intact as lower returns to investors. Bootstrap simulations suggest that few funds produce benchmark adjusted expected returns sufficient to cover their costs. If we add back the costs in expense ratios, there is evidence of inferior and superior performance (non-zero true alpha) in the extreme tails of the cross section of mutual fund alpha estimates.

Suggested Citation

Fama, Eugene F. and French, Kenneth R., Luck Versus Skill in the Cross Section of Mutual Fund Returns (December 14, 2009). Tuck School of Business Working Paper No. 2009-56 , Chicago Booth School of Business Research Paper, Journal of Finance, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1356021

Eugene F. Fama (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Finance ( email )

5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-7282 (Phone)
773-702-9937 (Fax)

Kenneth R. French

Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business ( email )

Hanover, NH 03755
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
25,958
Abstract Views
111,761
Rank
179
PlumX Metrics