Mutual fund flows and returns dynamics: Investor preferences and performance persistence

We investigate the flow-performance relationship by the lens of the investor preferences, applying a mutual fund dataset with an investment objective focused over European and US area. Incorporating a novel measure of asset managers' market timing ability, we analyze the role played by performance persistence in mutual fund investing decisions by focusing on top performers in a short-time window. Our empirical results showed that preferences strongly influence the returnsflow dynamics when accounting for the asset type, geographical investment focus, and management style tilt, shedding new light on the behavior of certain clustered groups of investors. Furthermore, we find a long-run information effect as a proxy of a positive association between past returns and flows leading by the smart money effect. Surprisingly, we also observe irrational investors' behavior when chasing for negative performers, likely due to a herding effect or flow persistent hypothesis as a result of the mechanisms of market allocation efficiency, which is likely to be affected by a slowdown functioning in the short-term phase. Robustness analyses confirm overall results.