This note is part of Quality testing.

In the first essay, we evaluate the performance of commodity mutual funds. The use of commodities to hedge inflation risk and diversify portfolios is generally considered to be an important consideration for portfolio management. Direct investment in commodities or commodity derivatives requires that investors have significant assets and/or expertise in these commodities or their respective derivatives markets. As an alternative to direct investment, investors in recent years have increasingly resorted to the use of commodity based mutual funds. At issue is the question of whether or not these funds are delivering the benefits investors expect. In this paper we evaluate the performance, persistence, market timing and selectivity of four categories of mutual funds whose returns are based on commodity prices over the time period from each fund's inception through December, 2012. Our results indicate that these funds have not been able to create positive alphas for their investors; have negative or insignificant performance persistence; and have no market timing ability. Some of the categories of funds, however do exhibit some selectivity. We did find that when these commodity based funds' performance was evaluated during specific time periods of market downturns (e.g., the 2000 stock market downturn and the 2007 financial crisis), their performance was significantly positive which indicates that these funds provide a good hedge during bear markets/financial crises. The second essay evaluates the performance and diversification benefits of international ETFs for U.S. investors during and after the recent financial crisis. Our results show that U.S. ETFs outperform all categories of international ETFs for the period of our study (January 2008 - June 2013); they have higher average monthly returns, lower risk (standard deviation of returns), higher risk-adjusted performance (Sharpe, Sortino, and Treynor ratios) and the highest cumulative returns over the entire period. When we form equally weighted portfolios of each ETF category and compute their risk-adjusted performance, we again find that U.S. ETF portfolios had the best performance for the entire period. We also find that U.S. ETFs have the lowest tracking error during the entire period. Most of these ETFs passively track the benchmark and do not manage for positive alpha. Previous research has questioned the diversification benefits of international investing during times of financial distress. We find that international ETFs are highly dependent on major U.S. indices, therefore, they offer limited diversification benefits for U.S. investors. "In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable 'moats'." Warren Buffett The third essay evaluates the performance of Wide Moat stocks. Companies that have sustainable competitive advantages should be able to create a barrier (moat) to prevent or lessen competition from other firms. The wider the moat the greater the barrier and the more secure the company's profitability. Using the Morningstar classification of "Wide Moat" stocks, we construct annually rebalanced equal- and value-weighted portfolios to analyze their performance in order to determine if they deliver superior performance relative to standard benchmark portfolios. The period for our analysis extends from June 2002 through May 2014. We find that the "Wide Moat" portfolios outperform both the S & P 500 and Russell 3000 indices generating higher average monthly and annualized returns, Sharpe Ratio, Sortino Ratio, Treynor Ratio, Omega Ratio, Upside Potential Ratio, M2, M2 Alpha and cumulative returns. When we compute alpha using Carhart four-factor and Fama-French five-factor models, we find that "Wide Moat" portfolios had significantly positive risk-adjusted alphas with both the models. "Wide Moat" portfolios also lost less value during the 2007-2009 financial crisis compared to both S & P 500 and Russell 3000. In conclusion, we find that "Wide Moat" stocks have created significant value for their investors over the course of our study.

This dissertation consists of three essays on the strategic qualitative disclosure decisions of hedge funds and mutual funds. The dissertation research seeks to contribute to a new understanding of the relationship between the content of fund filings and behavioral tendencies of fund stakeholders including management and investors. In the first essay, I evaluate the use of strategic disclosure by hedge fund management in order to conceal reporting inconsistencies. I inspect fund returns using a series of nine performance tests and identify a significant number of hedge funds with irregular return patterns. Using text-based analysis, I assess the qualitative content of strategy statements and find funds with suspicious performance produce distinct disclosure in regards to word choice. I conclude that these funds attempt to reduce detection by designing strategy descriptions that deviate from industry peers. My results come in contrast to prior evidence on herding tendencies and persist using alternative variable definitions and model specifications. The second essay investigates the impact of hedge fund strategic qualitative disclosure choices on fund investment. Specifically, I examine fund strategy descriptions using text-based analysis and study the relationship between the measures and hedge fund flows. In both the univariate and multivariate settings, I find strong evidence that the textual composition of fund filings can contribute to a fund's ability to attract investors. Overall, this essay finds support for the assertion that disclosure content influences investor decision-making. The findings are robust to alternative variable definitions and model specifications. In the third essay, I examine the effects of mutual fund filing composition on the ability of funds to attract investors. Using a large sample of U.S., open-ended mutual funds, I compute textual similarity and readability measures of the Investment Objective-Strategy and Principal Risk sections and examine the relationship with mutual fund flows. In the univariate setting, readability and similarity are drivers of mutual fund flows. After the inclusion of common fund flow controls and alternative model specifications, the explanatory power of the textual measures is partially reduced. Overall, I find mixed evidence that mutual fund investors use disclosure as a means to make investment decisions.

Institutional investors such as mutual funds and hedge funds play an important role in today's financial markets. This thesis consists of three essays which empirically study the behavior of active fund managers. In particular, the first essay investigates whether managers behave rationally or if some of them unconsciously make wrong investment decisions due to behavioral biases. The second essay examines whether some managers intentionally act to solely advance their own interests by strategically valuing the security positions in their portfolio. The third essay analyzes what the managers' education reveals about their investment behavior.

The hedge fund industry and hedge fund related research have grown rapidly in the last decade. In 1990, hedge funds controlled an estimated $39 billion in assets. At the end of 2006, hedge funds had an estimated $1.72 trillion in assets under management. This dissertation consists of three essays exploring the hedge fund industry. In the first essay, I use the recent controversial and ultimately unsuccessful SEC attempt to increase hedge fund disclosure to examine the value of disclosure to investors. By examining SEC mandated disclosures filed by a large number of hedge funds in February 2006, I am able to construct a measure of operational risk distinct from market risk. Leverage and ownership structures as of December 2005 suggest that lenders and hedge fund equity investors were already aware of hedge fund operational risk characteristics. However, operational risk has no effect on the flow-performance relationship, suggesting that investors either lack this information, or they do not regard it as material. In the second essay, I examine hedge fund management and incentive fee structures and changes as well as the use of redemption fees. Overall, I find hedge funds' fee structures are related to their other fund characteristics in a manner consistent with the mutual fund area and previous fee theory. I observe management fees are negatively related to fund characteristics that lower administrative overhead and positively related to tax incentives. Incentive fees are positively correlated with return characteristics that raise the total values of managers' option-like incentive fee contracts. Hedge fund fee changes are found to be a function of pricing power and managers attempting to decrease investor demand in capacity constrained styles while redemption fees are used to protect managers against poor performance. Finally, funds of funds have positively associated incentive and management fees, which create a negative relationship between incentive fees and fund alphas. In the third essay, I examine if hedge fund managers close and reopen funds to investment to preserve performance. While my results show closed hedge funds do experience significantly lower flows, managers' and management companies' primary objective is to hoard assets. Hedge funds in capacity constrained styles do not close more often, do not close at lower relative asset levels and do not reopen at lower relative asset levels. Hedge funds reopen to investment to generate additional fees, not when funds are capable of generating out performance. These results suggest even high performance-pay deltas are not strong enough to overcome additional fees generated from larger amounts of assets. Other monitoring mechanisms are necessary to reduce agency costs for investors.