We model the tax drag from active funds management by simulating portfolios based on reported monthly holdings of 207 active Australian equity funds between July 2000 and December 2010, and then compare both pre-tax- and after-tax fund returns versus those for passive indices modeled under the same assumptions. Tax drag erodes 65% of the 0.74%...

Using a replicating portfolio method to capture the long-term risk loadings of Australian active institutional funds, we investigate patterns in how actual disclosed fund returns diverge from those anticipated by their factor loadings. We find that Australian funds’ returns generate positive alpha, are tilted slightly towards big stocks, and tend to be convex to their...

We examine potential sources of measurement error when evaluating the after-tax performance of fund managers based on periodic snapshots of their holdings alone, compared to when daily transactions data are also available. To do this, we compare portfolio return estimates based on imputed trades from monthly, quarterly and semiannual snapshots with estimates that also incorporate...

Our contribution to funds management research is in matching qualitative information sourced from the fund manager with their own quantitative data concerning what assets they own, how they trade, and how their portfolios are managed. We find that survey responses are informative of characteristic values relative to other funds e.g. funds that declare higher maximum...

An effective portfolio disclosure regime must balance both its costs and benefits across the entire financial services industry. This study examines a number of disclosure regimes with respect to accuracy and susceptibility to copycat behaviour in an environment absent of mandatory disclosure. We find that periodic portfolio disclosure tends to underestimate true excess performance as...