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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 88 No. 2 2008

Dumb money: Mutual fund flows and the cross-section of stock returns

Andrea Frazzini1; Owen A. Lamont2

1 University of Chicago · 2 Yale University

Abstract

We use mutual fund flows as a measure of individual investor sentiment for different stocks, and find that high sentiment predicts low future returns. Fund flows are dumb money–by reallocating across different mutual funds, retail investors reduce their wealth in the long run. This dumb money effect is related to the value effect: high sentiment stocks tend to be growth stocks. High sentiment also is associated with high corporate issuance, interpretable as companies increasing the supply of shares in response to investor demand.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2007.07.001
Volume
88
Issue
2
Pages
299-322
Language
en
Sources
crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex

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