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Working Paper
The costs and benefits of moral suasion: evidence from the rescue of Long-Term Capital Management
This study examines the level of unsecured borrowing done by the firms that would ultimately rescue Long-Term Capital Management in the days leading up to the hedge fund's rescue. Although there is some evidence that these banks borrowed less at the height of the crisis, further examination reveals that this reduction in borrowing was demand-driven and did not result from rationing on the part of the market. This suggests that the market believed that the troubles at LTCM would not have solvency-threatening repercussions for the fund's major creditors. Further, it is shown that large banks ...
Working Paper
Market conditions and hedge fund survival
As the hedge fund industry has grown, there has been increased concern that, during sharp market moves, hedge fund failures could exacerbate the deterioration in financial conditions and deepen a crisis. However, there has not been much formal analysis regarding the impact of financial market conditions on hedge fund survival. To help fill this gap, this paper examines the relationship between financial market conditions and the likelihood of hedge fund failure after controlling for performance and other characteristics. The analysis is conducted using data on individual funds and industry ...
Working Paper
Fundamental Arbitrage under the Microscope: Evidence from Detailed Hedge Fund Transaction Data
We exploit detailed transaction and position data for a sample of long-short equity hedge funds to study the trading activity of fundamental investors. We find that hedge funds exhibit skill in opening positions, but that they close their positions too early, thereby forgoing about a third of the trades’ potential profitability. We explain this behavior with the limits of arbitrage: hedge funds close positions early in order to reallocate their capital to more profitable investments and/or to accommodate tightened financial constraints. Consistent with this view, we document that hedge ...
Journal Article
The truth about hedge funds
Do hedge funds help or hurt the financial markets in which they operate? The highly publicized troubles of Long Term Capital Management have once again focused the attention of policymakers and the press on the hedge fund industry and the cry for its regulation. This Economic Commentary refutes some of the commonly held myths about hedge funds and examines the rationale for regulating them.
Report
Performance maximization of actively managed funds
Ratios that indicate the statistical significance of a fund's alpha typically appraise its performance. A growing literature suggests that even in the absence of any ability to predict returns, holding options positions on the benchmark assets or trading frequently can significantly enhance performance ratios. This paper derives the performance-maximizing strategy--a variant of buy-write--and the least upper bound on such performance enhancement, thereby showing that if common equity indexes are used as benchmarks, the potential performance enhancement from trading frequently is usually ...
Working Paper
Liquidity risk and hedge fund ownership
Using a unique, hand-collected data set of hedge fund ownership, we examine the effects of hedge fund ownership on liquidity risk in the cross-section of stocks. After controlling for institutional preferences for stock characteristics, we find that stocks held by hedge funds as marginal investors are more sensitive to changes in aggregate liquidity than comparable stocks held by other types of institutions or by individuals. Stocks held by hedge funds also experience significantly negative abnormal returns during liquidity crises. These findings support the theory of Brunnermeier and ...
Journal Article
Hedge funds: an industry in its adolescence
The dramatic increase in the number of hedge funds and the "institutionalization" of the industry over the past decade have spurred rigorous research into hedge fund performance. This research has tended to uncover more questions than answers about the dynamic and multifaceted hedge fund industry. ; This article presents a simple hedge fund business model in which fund returns are a function of three key elements -- how the funds trade, where they trade, and how the positions are financed. The article also provides methods to help investors, intermediaries, and regulators identify systemic ...