De facto time‐varying indices‐based benchmarks for mutual fund returns

Abstract

AbstractWe question time‐invariant indices as fund benchmarks and propose a regime‐switching methodology to identify time‐varying de facto benchmarks from a pool of market‐based indices, with or without a risk‐free asset. To ameliorate the benchmark mismatch issue, we highlight the importance of using time‐varying indices‐based benchmarks for fund performance evaluation. Our de facto benchmark captures fund styles better than other benchmark choices, substantially improves the identification of significant fund alphas, and provides better out‐of‐sample forecasts. We uncover several new findings in terms of fund performance evaluation using our de facto benchmarks.