ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4221-9794

Date of Award

Winter 12-2021

Author's School

Olin Business School

Department

Finance, Doctor of Business Administration

Degree Name

Doctor of Business

Degree Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This dissertation examines mutual fund portfolio formation, the economic forces that determine how fund managers construct their portfolios, and the market effects of fund portfolio disclosures.

In the first chapter of my dissertation, I study how funds modify their portfolios around disclosure dates in order to cater to their investors’ non-financial preferences. Using social norms and investor boycotts surrounding tobacco and firearm sectors as a proxy for non-financial preferences, I find that these stocks experience significant negative returns on portfolio disclosure dates and significant positive returns on the day after the portfolio disclosure. I also find that funds accelerate their trading activity in these stocks after the portfolio disclosure. These results suggest that investors’ non-financial preferences can result in temporary fluctuations in asset prices around mutual fund portfolio disclosure dates.

In the second chapter, co-authored with Todd Gormley and Zachary Kaplan, I examine how fund trades and stock prices vary around the quarterly fund reporting cycle. Mutual funds accelerate trades that complete the building of existing positions by disclosure dates but delay trades that initiate new positions until after the portfolio disclosure. Consistent with disclosure-based motives unrelated to new information about intrinsic values driving these quarterly trade dynamics, both stock price informativeness and commissions paid by funds drop at quarter-end.

Chair and Committee

Zachary Kaplan, Todd A. Gormley, Mahendra Gupta

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