Performance of securities investment funds in China

Using daily data from May 2000 to January 2004, this study examines the risk, return, securities selection, and market timing performance of China's securities investment funds (SIFs), in comparison with the performance of the SIFs in the United States. Our results indicate that China investment funds show superior market timing performance, while U.S. fund managers display stronger securities selection ability. These results imply that the potential synergy for Sino-U.S. joint venture investment funds could be tremendous. Additional analysis of the trading volume of closed-end funds in China illustrates that investors' interests in SIFs are strongly and positively related to fund performance. Results also indicate that Chinese investors favor professionally managed funds more than direct investment in stocks during negative market conditions.