[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbwps/20232874.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fund fragility: the role of investor base

Author

Listed:
  • Allaire, Nolwenn
  • Breckenfelder, Johannes
  • Hoerova, Marie
Abstract
Using security-by-security data on investor holdings in the euro area, we study run dynamics across different fund-shares of the same fund during the unprecedented liquidity crisis in March 2020. For an average bond or equity mutual fund-share, households, other euro area funds, and the foreign sector each represent about a quarter of the total holdings. Insurance companies hold another 14%, with all other investors combined (banks, non-financial corporations, pension funds, etc.) accounting for less than 10% of holdings. Analyzing bond funds, we show that fund-shares with higher ownership by other funds suffered substantially higher outflows (by 6 percentage points), while fund-shares with higher ownership by households had substantially lower outflows (by 5 percentage points) compared to the other fund-shares within the same fund. This gap is not driven by time-varying differences in fund performance. Results for equity funds are similar, although they faced substantially smaller outflows, coupled with much larger declines in performance, compared to bond funds. Our findings suggest that a collective “dash for cash” by consumers and firms in need of liquidity at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic was not the source of mutual fund fragility. Instead, the most run-prone investor type turned out to be the fund sector itself. JEL Classification: G01, G10, G21, G23

Suggested Citation

  • Allaire, Nolwenn & Breckenfelder, Johannes & Hoerova, Marie, 2023. "Fund fragility: the role of investor base," Working Paper Series 2874, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20232874
    Note: 1125999
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2874~af5c7c3678.en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ľuboš Pástor & M Blair Vorsatz & Jeffrey Pontiff, 0. "Mutual Fund Performance and Flows during the COVID-19 Crisis," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 791-833.
    2. He, Zhiguo & Nagel, Stefan & Song, Zhaogang, 2022. "Treasury inconvenience yields during the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 57-79.
    3. Chevalier, Judith & Ellison, Glenn, 1997. "Risk Taking by Mutual Funds as a Response to Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1167-1200, December.
    4. Cristina Cella & Andrew Ellul & Mariassunta Giannetti, 2013. "Investors' Horizons and the Amplification of Market Shocks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(7), pages 1607-1648.
    5. Goldstein, Itay, 2017. "Comment on “Redemption risk and cash hoarding by asset managers” by Morris, Shim, and Shin," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 88-91.
    6. Morris, Stephen & Shim, Ilhyock & Shin, Hyun Song, 2017. "Redemption risk and cash hoarding by asset managers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 71-87.
    7. Chernenko, Sergey & Sunderam, Adi, 2016. "Liquidity transformation in asset management: Evidence from the cash holdings of mutual funds," ESRB Working Paper Series 23, European Systemic Risk Board.
    8. Lawrence Schmidt & Allan Timmermann & Russ Wermers, 2016. "Runs on Money Market Mutual Funds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2625-2657, September.
    9. Koijen, Ralph S.J. & Koulischer, François & Nguyen, Benoît & Yogo, Motohiro, 2021. "Inspecting the mechanism of quantitative easing in the euro area," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 1-20.
    10. Fricke, Daniel & Jank, Stephan & Wilke, Hannes, 2022. "Who creates and who bears flow externalities in mutual funds?," Discussion Papers 41/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    11. Yiming Ma & Kairong Xiao & Yao Zeng, 2022. "Mutual Fund Liquidity Transformation and Reverse Flight to Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(10), pages 4674-4711.
    12. Mahyar Kargar & Benjamin Lester & David Lindsay & Shuo Liu & Pierre-Olivier Weill & Diego Zúñiga, 2021. "Corporate Bond Liquidity during the COVID-19 Crisis [The day coronavirus nearly broke the financial markets]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5352-5401.
    13. Goldstein, Itay & Jiang, Hao & Ng, David T., 2017. "Investor flows and fragility in corporate bond funds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(3), pages 592-613.
    14. Sergey Chernenko & Adi Sunderam, 2016. "Liquidity Transformation in Asset Management: Evidence from the Cash Holdings of Mutual Funds," NBER Working Papers 22391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Zeng, Yao, 2017. "A dynamic theory of mutual fund runs and liquidity management," ESRB Working Paper Series 42, European Systemic Risk Board.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dekker, Lennart & Molestina Vivar, Luis & Weistroffer, Christian, 2024. "Passing on the hot potato: the use of ETFs by open-ended funds to manage redemption requests," Working Paper Series 2963, European Central Bank.
    2. Javier Gil-Bazo & Raffaele Santioni, 2024. "Geographic Shareholder Dispersion and Mutual Fund Flow Risk," Working Papers 1440, Barcelona School of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Breckenfelder, Johannes & Hoerova, Marie, 2023. "Do non-banks need access to the lender of last resort? Evidence from fund runs," Working Paper Series 2805, European Central Bank.
    2. Falato, Antonio & Goldstein, Itay & Hortaçsu, Ali, 2021. "Financial fragility in the COVID-19 crisis: The case of investment funds in corporate bond markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 35-52.
    3. Antonio Falato & Itay Goldstein & Ali Hortaçsu, 2020. "Financial Fragility in the COVID-19 Crisis: The Case of Investment Funds in Corporate Bond Markets," Working Papers 2020-98, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    4. Mathias S. Kruttli & Phillip J. Monin & Lubomir Petrasek & Sumudu W. Watugala, 2021. "Hedge Fund Treasury Trading and Funding Fragility: Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-038, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Milan Szabo, 2022. "Meeting investor outflows in Czech bond and equity funds: horizontal or vertical?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1123-1151, November.
    6. Molestina Vivar, Luis & Wedow, Michael & Weistroffer, Christian, 2023. "Burned by leverage? Flows and fragility in bond mutual funds," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 354-380.
    7. Valentin Haddad & Alan Moreira & Tyler Muir, 2021. "When Selling Becomes Viral: Disruptions in Debt Markets in the COVID-19 Crisis and the Fed’s Response [Funding value adjustments]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5309-5351.
    8. Antoine Baena & Thomas Garcia, 2023. "Swing Pricing et dynamique des flux au regard de la crise Covid-19," Working papers 914, Banque de France.
    9. Jiang, Hao & Li, Yi & Sun, Zheng & Wang, Ashley, 2022. "Does mutual fund illiquidity introduce fragility into asset prices? Evidence from the corporate bond market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 277-302.
    10. Shui-Tang Wu, Gabriel & Ho-Yeung Wong, Joe & Pak-Wing Fong, Tom, 2024. "Does swing pricing reduce investment funds’ liquidity risk in times of market stress? – Evidence from the March-2020 episode," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    11. Dekker, Lennart, 2024. "Essays on asset liquidity and investment funds," Other publications TiSEM 5fc9bf77-84e7-4a36-9e3a-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Dunhong Jin & Marcin Kacperczyk & Bige Kahraman & Felix Suntheim, 2022. "Swing Pricing and Fragility in Open-End Mutual Funds," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(1), pages 1-50.
    13. Cesa-Bianchi, Ambrogio & Czech, Robert & Eguren Martin, Fernando, 2021. "Dash for Dollars," CEPR Discussion Papers 16415, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Dekker, Lennart & Molestina Vivar, Luis & Wedow, Michael & Weistroffer, Christian, 2024. "Liquidity buffers and open-end investment funds: Containing outflows or reducing fire sales?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    15. Weth, Mark Andreas & Dötz, Niko, 2019. "Redemptions and Asset Liquidations in Corporate Bond Funds," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203542, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. di Iasio, Giovanni & Kryczka, Dominika, 2021. "Market failures in market-based finance," Working Paper Series 2545, European Central Bank.
    17. Jannic Cutura & Gianpaolo Parise & Andreas Schrimpf, 2020. "Debt De-risking," BIS Working Papers 868, Bank for International Settlements.
    18. Agostino Capponi & Paul Glasserman & Marko Weber, 2020. "Swing Pricing for Mutual Funds: Breaking the Feedback Loop Between Fire Sales and Fund Redemptions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(8), pages 3581-3602, August.
    19. Grill, Michael & Molestina Vivar, Luis & Wedow, Michael, 2022. "Mutual fund suspensions during the COVID-19 market turmoil - asset liquidity, liquidity management tools and spillover effects," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    20. Dekker, Lennart & Molestina Vivar, Luis & Wedow, Michael & Weistroffer, Christian, 2023. "Liquidity buffers and open-end investment funds: containing outflows and reducing fire sales," Working Paper Series 2825, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    investor type; liquidity; March 2020 liquidity crisis; mutual funds; runs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20232874. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.