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Outlines previous research on the mutual fund industry and compares the characteristics of the US and European mutual fund markets using the structure‐conduct‐performance paradigm. Shows that the European industry is smaller, with more funds and more emphasis on fixed income, with the UK and US having lower concentration ratios than mainland Europe; and the US a wider range of fees. Contrasts the use of different distribution channels and performance statistics; and uses 1991‐1997 data to compare actual stock market returns against benchmarks and between countries. Analyses this in detail and notes with surprise the European funds have a better average performance than US funds.

This paper aims to make an analysis of investment behaviour in mutual funds, by looking at different investment decision influencers and trying to identify the extent to which the investment decision is knowledge-based. The paper has three main purposes, namely, to assess the degree to which the considered factors influence investment decision-making in young capital markets from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE); to compare the investment behaviour in the three considered countries; and to characterise investment behaviour in periods of economic turbulence.

The researchers considered a model of investment behaviour comprising six influencing factors. Inferential statistics through multiple linear regression was applied using the MATLAB R2014a software. The decision to invest was measured by the flow of new capital attracted by the fund (dependent variable) and the considered influencing factors (independent variables) were: the size of the fund, the risk associated to the fund, the growth of the fund, the growth of the fund category, the performance of the fund in its category. The research was conducted in Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. The period of study included the global economic crisis of 2007-2008.

The results illustrated that all considered factors do have an influence on the investment behaviour of investors in CEE, but with different levels of impact. The study concludes that the investment decision is partially knowledge-based, as investors in the region consider only some of the available information when making the decision to invest. Investment behaviour of investors in CEE is rather similar than dissimilar when deciding to invest in mutual funds. However, based on the differences between countries, it can be stated that the Hungarian investor is more mature and more informed than the others, when making investment decisions.

The study contributes to the exiting literature through the analysis of investment behaviour in young capital markets that are less studied in the literature. The limited number of studies considering mutual funds, usually comprise one fund category, while the present research considers all five most prevalent mutual funds categories for the studied period. It also contributed by collecting data from a less studied geographical region, CEE with three specific case studies, namely, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary that are looked at in a comparative manner.

Purpose – To study the allocation in equity markets of sovereign wealth funds’ (SWF) investments with respect to other institutional investors. To analyze the role of political regimes in the sending and recipient countries as a determinant of the allocation of SWF investments.

Methodology/approach – We use mutual funds’ investments as a benchmark for SWF investment allocations. We collect data of SWF and mutual fund equity investments at the firm level and analyse them on a geographical and sector basis. We compare target investments for these two groups by looking at the political regime in the sending and recipient country, using different political indicators (Polity IV, Bertelsmann). We provide a comparison of SWFs and pension funds based on governance features related to investment.

Findings – We find that the fear that sovereigns with political motivations use their financial power to secure large stakes in OECD countries is not confirmed by the data. SWF investment decisions do not differ greatly from those of other wealth managers. Although there can be differences in the allocation, political regimes in the recipient countries do not play a role in explaining the allocation of sovereign wealth funds.

Social implications – Investment from public institutions, such as sovereign wealth funds, can have significant implications at the economic and social level. Sovereign funds are potential sources of capital for emerging economies, and therefore can enchance economic growth. It is important to understand to what extent public institutional investors behave differently from private investors. The “political bias” is not a relevant factor for sovereign funds, or for other institutional investors, for allocating their capital. More often than not, their asset allocation strategies converge with other large investors, these being driven by financial and not political bias.

Originality/value of the chapter – The chapter is an original contribution providing a firm-level analysis of equity holdings for two groups of institutional investors. Moreover, it emphasizes the political dimension of institutional investments, highlighting the priorities and constraints of public investors participating in financial markets. The chapter suggests that SWFs do not discriminate by the political regime of the recipient country in their asset allocation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of mutual funds’ performance at both a country level and a fund level in Vietnam.

The different types of funds with more than three-year operation are selected to remove outliers of the stock market boom from 2015 to 2018. The data set includes 54 mutual funds operating during the period from 2008 until November 2018.

The research finds that there is a positive relationship between macroeconomics and mutual funds’ performance. Furthermore, country-level governance such as regulation effectiveness, political stability, economic growth and financial development has a positive correlation with mutual funds’ performance. However, the impact of fund-level factors is diverse with the no significant impact of board size on mutual fund’s performance, while passive funds perform better than active funds in Vietnam.

The research results suggest that investors should pay attention to the types of funds and operating expense when making an investment decision in mutual funds. There are some recommendations for both government policy-makers and the mutual fund industry that are likely to facilitate the development of this field in Vietnam.

The research contributes to the understanding of what are the factors that should be considered when investing in mutual funds.

Choosing how to invest one’s assets is one of the more important decisions consumers are faced with. However, determining the objective financial quality of complex investment products such as mutual funds is not an easy task for consumers. Against this background, this study aims to clarify the potential impact of one, not necessarily rational, cue on consumer perceptions of financial quality in the investment context: the country-of-origin (COO) of the mutual fund or stock.

Two Web-based experiments are used to test the study’s hypotheses.

COO is found to impact investors’ evaluation of the financial metrics of mutual funds, both in terms of perceived risk and potential return. Moreover, the results of Experiment 2 show that although a strong financial brand can partially overcome the COO effect, the extent of this effect is moderated by whether the fund utilizes an active or passive management style.

Although mutual fund providers with a strong financial country image (CI) may leverage that image and build on their home country’s brand, providers from countries with a poor financial CI may do well focusing on passive management to minimize negative COO influence.

The results highlight that COO can be an important source of sub-optimal investment decisions. These insights are of high importance for efforts to improve consumer decision-making and for individual service providers.

This paper investigates the performance of locally focused equity mutual funds (LFEFs) in Saudi Arabia as compared with the performance of benchmark funds. More specifically, the focal question pertains to whether Shariah-compliant mutual funds (SMFs) and conventional mutual funds (CMFs) outperform their respective benchmarks. Undertaken in the context of Saudi Arabia's economic planning under Vision 2030, the study offers a foundation for determining whether and the extent to which Shariah-compliant investment strategies are competitive—a matter of considerable importance across 57 Muslim countries.

The Carhart four-factor model is applied to a sample of 39 Saudi Arabian mutual funds (MFs) using the monthly net asset value (NAV) per share. The sample period, April 2007 to October 2016, is considered in its entirety and as three sub-periods, i.e. low-, medium- and high-volatility.

The results show that the locally focused equity mutual funds (LFEFs) significantly outperformed their benchmark, i.e. the Tadawul All Share Index (TASI), during the full sample period and the low-volatility period. According to the empirical comparison, the CMFs also outperformed their TASI benchmark for the full sample period and the low-volatility period. However, the SMFs neither outperformed nor underperformed their S&P Saudi Arabia Domestic Shariah Index benchmark. That is, for each of the SMFs included in the sample, the Jensen's alpha was insignificant for both the full sample and all three volatility sub-periods.

In this paper, the four-factor model is used in the context of a single country. The results, therefore, may not be generalizable to the multi-country level in the Gulf Council Cooperation (GCC) region given differences between the member countries in terms of financial structure and economic focus.

The results reported constitute a useful guide for policymakers and faith-based-sensitive investors concerned about the Shariah compliancy of their portfolios given that there is very little difference between how CMFs and SMFs performed in the focal period. This research can be extended to include other Islamic countries in the GCC region as a basis for identifying optimal investment vehicles, i.e. those most likely to produce high returns at low risk.

The work reported in this paper is original and constitutes a valuable asset for ethnoreligious-sensitive investors. The research has not been published in any capacity and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The purpose of this paper is to study the scope for country diversification in international portfolios of mutual funds for the “core” EMU countries. The author uses a sample of daily returns for country indices of French, German and Italian funds to investigate the quest for international diversification. The author focuses on fixed-income mutual funds during the period of the financial market turmoil since 2007.

The author compute optimal portfolio allocations from both unconstrained and constrained mean-variance frameworks that take as input the out-of-sample forecasts for the conditional mean, volatility and correlation of country-level indices for funds returns. The author also applies a portfolio allocation model based on utility maximization with learning about the time-varying conditional moments. The author compares the out-of-sample forecasting performance of 12 multivariate volatility models.

The author finds that there is a “core” EMU country also for the mutual fund industry: optimal portfolios allocate the largest portfolio weight to German funds, with Italian funds assigned a lower weight in comparison to French funds. This result is remarkably robust across competing forecasting models and optimal allocation strategies. It is also consistent with the findings from a utility-maximization model that incorporates learning about time-varying conditional moments.

This is the first study on optimal country-level diversification for a mutual fund investor focused on European countries in the fixed-income space for the turmoil period. The author uses a large array of econometric models that captures the salient features of a period characterized by large changes in volatility and correlation, and compare the performance of different optimal asset allocation models.

This chapter looks at the development of contractual savings and institutional investors in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia (EJMT), and their links with the development of equity markets. The chapter identifies four major potential contributions of contractual savings to capital market development as well as “impact pre-conditions” that can help them obtain. It concludes that contractual savings and institutional investors are neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of equity and bond markets. Nevertheless with certain conditions in place they can have a large impact. The presence of these conditions in EJMT are assessed.

This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature of marketing communication by exploring the role of different nudges implemented through advertising and personal selling in enhancing purchase intention and sales of mutual funds in Pakistan.

Data collected by 20 semi-structured individual qualitative interviews in Pakistan were subjected to thematic analysis.

This study reveals the way managers apply different nudges in the form of Islamic beliefs and values in advertising and personal selling to enhance purchase intention and sales of mutual fund products among Muslim customers. Nudges that can be used in marketing communication may include religious cues, religious beliefs, religious values, spiritual elements, halal aspects of investment plans, religious icons and symbols, cultural music and images, appropriateness and correctness of sales messages and communicating halal aspects of mutual funds.

The conclusions are based on findings from a relatively small number of respondents from one investment firm, but they offer an empirical basis for future research on the effect of advertising and personal selling on the sales and purchase intention of mutual fund products in an Islamic society.

This study offers practitioners a better understanding of the marketing communication tools likely to influence consumers’ purchase intention of mutual fund products, with positive implications in creating advertising and sales management in Pakistan.

Despite the prevalence of promoting mutual fund products, little research-based analysis has been available to academics or practitioners.