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Journal of Accounting Research Vol. 46 No. 1 2008

Do Mutual Funds Profit from the Accruals Anomaly?

Ashiq Ali1; Xuanjuan Chen2; Tong Yao3; Tong Yu4

1 University of Texas at Dallas · 2 Kansas State University · 3 University of Arizona · 4 University of Rhode Island

Abstract

Using data on both fund stockholdings and fund returns, we examine whether actively managed equity mutual funds trade on and profit from the accruals anomaly. We find that few, if any, mutual funds trade on the anomaly. The top 10% of mutual funds that have the highest portfolio weights in low‐accruals stocks have a greater, but still relatively small, exposure to low‐accruals stocks. Nonetheless, these funds make significant profit net of actual transaction costs, exhibiting an average Fama‐French three‐factor alpha of 2.83% per year. We also find that these funds are smaller, less diversified, and exhibit higher fund return volatility and higher fund flow volatility.

DOI
10.1111/j.1475-679x.2007.00263.x
Volume
46
Issue
1
Pages
1-26
Language
en
Sources
openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

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