Concave Payoff Patterns in Equity Fund Holdings and Transactions

Abstract

Recent results from the hedge fund literature provide evidence that option-based risk factors may be a significant factor in managed fund returns. By examining a unique database of high-frequency holdings and transactions from a representative sample of forty Australian equity funds we find that exposure to these option-based risk factors may well arise from trading activity rather than from derivative positions that generate similar payouts. While the resulting concave payout patterns are associated with large and significant alphas in our sample, these alphas may be more a compensation for a modest increase in tail risk exposure than they are a reward for information-based trading.