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This study aims to examine the cross-sectional variation in risk of US-based micro-cap open-end mutual funds. Micro-cap mutual funds allow investors to access very low-priced stocks issued by the smallest of companies. The stock of these firms is usually not traded in major exchanges, and their financial information is not readily available and, thus, regarded as risky investments.

The author examines the cross-sectional variation in risk and higher moments of US-based micro-cap mutual funds in comparison with that of small-cap and mid-cap mutual funds. Total, systematic and idiosyncratic risk metrics, along with higher moments, are estimated before, during and after the 2008 financial crisis.

The author finds that, indeed, based on total and idiosyncratic risk metrics, the sample of micro-cap funds is riskier than the size-matched samples of small-cap and mid-cap funds. The author also reports that the sample of micro-cap funds fail to generate higher excess returns than the less risky small-cap and mid-cap funds.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first time that the risk of small-cap mutual funds has been examined.

This study aims to analyze the impact of corporate governance characteristics on the risk exposure of Islamic mutual funds prevailing in different Islamic countries (Pakistan and Malaysia).

This study used dynamic panel regression model for analysis and estimated the results using system generalized method of moment technique. A sample of 185 Islamic funds is used in the current research, which is selected using judgmental sampling. The data span of this study consists nine years from 2009 to 2017.

The results showed that the corporate governance characteristics such as board independence, directors and institutional ownership and overall governance quality are helpful in reducing the total and downside risk exposure of Islamic mutual funds. The findings also suggest that board size and Chief Extractive officer duality play no role in mitigating the risk of Islamic funds prevailing in both countries.

This study has implication for industry practitioners and fund managers. This study showed that the corporate governance characteristics are helpful in reducing the risk exposure of Islamic mutual funds. Therefore, this study provides input to the investment firms to improve the quality of corporate governance for lowering the risk exposure of mutual funds.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to analyze the impact of corporate governance characteristics on the risk exposure of Islamic mutual funds and hence provides significant contribution in the literature of mutual funds.

This study aims to comparatively analyze the systematic, idiosyncratic and downside risk exposure of both Islamic and conventional funds in Pakistan to see which of the funds has higher risk exposure.

The study analyzes different types of risks involved in both Islamic and conventional funds for the period from 2009 to 2016 by using different risk measures. For systematic and idiosyncratic risk single factor CAPM and multifactor models such as Fama French three factors model and Carhart four factors model are used. For downside risk analysis different measures such as downside beta, relative beta, value at risk and expected short fall are used.

The study finds that Islamic funds have lower risk exposure (including total, systematic, idiosyncratic and downside risk) compared with their conventional counterparts in most of the sample years, and hence, making them appear more attractive for investment especially for Sharīʿah-compliant investors preferring low risk preferences.

As this study shows, Islamic mutual funds exhibit lower risk exposure than their conventional counterparts so investors with lower risk preferences can invest in these kinds of funds. In this way, this research provides the input to the individual investors (especially Sharīʿah-compliant investors who want to avoid interest based investment) to help them with their investment decisions as they can make a more diversified portfolio by considering Islamic funds as a mean for reducing the risk exposure.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first attempt at world level in looking at the comparative risk analysis of various types of the risks as follows: systematic, idiosyncratic and downside risk, for both Islamic and conventional funds, and thus, provides significant contribution in the literature of mutual funds.

This conceptual paper aims to explore portfolio replication to resolve post-COVID pandemic private and public debt. This paper stresses the need to be less dependent on a debt-based system and the emergence Islamic equity market.

This study analyses different types of risks involved in Islamic and conventional portfolios by using risk measures such as relative beta and comparatively examining the systematic and downside risk exposure of Islamic and conventional portfolios. Data was collected monthly from 2016 to 2022.

The findings indicate that the replications of a conventional portfolio into an Islamic portfolio are compatible with the regulatory standard, sharia boundaries and professional practices developed from investment theory. The result shows that Islamic portfolios have lower risk exposure compared with their conventional counterparts in most of the sample years, therefore, become further attractive for debt–equity portfolio swaps and Sharia-compliant investors preferring low-risk preferences. The result confirmed that the Islamic portfolios have a higher return and less risk than conventional portfolios.

The implications of this research are to provide a road map to the regulators, policymakers, governments and the financial industry on how to rearrange some of the public and private debt. A likely remedy is incorporating Islamic financial instrument principles through the equitisation of public and private debt.

This research contributes to investors (particularly those who want to avoid riba [usury] based investment) to make more diversified portfolios by considering Islamic portfolios to reduce risk exposure.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to create bivariate debt–equity portfolios swaps composed of Islamic and conventional assets.

This study examines several aspects of active portfolio management by equity hedge funds between 1996 and 2013. Consistent with the idea that cross-sectional return dispersion is a proxy for the market’s available alpha, our results show that equity hedge funds achieve their strongest performance during periods of elevated dispersion. The performance advantage is robust to numerous risk adjustments. Portfolio managers may use the current month’s dispersion to plan the extent to which the following month’s investment approach will be active or passive. We also estimate the active share for equity hedge funds and find an average of 53%. We further document the average annual expense ratio for managing hedge funds’ active share to be about 7%. This figure is remarkably close to active expense ratios reported previously for equity mutual funds, which may be interpreted as evidence of uniform pricing for active portfolio management services.

The main purpose of this study is to use the Sharpe Ratio to test the efficient market hypothesis for different market capitalization and investment styles of mutual funds. The results of the study for the entire period of 1994‐2007 as well as the two subperiods (1994‐1999 and 2000‐2007) indicate that small cap funds have provided the highest risk‐adjusted return for the entire period whereas growth funds have exhibited lower returns. The findings, therefore, suggest that the mutual funds market is not always efficient, which makes it possible for an investor or a mutual fund manager to earn excess return on a risk‐adjusted basis.