Portfolio performance evaluation of South African mutual funds 2001-2006

Abstract

Generating strong alpha returns is the primary objectives of fund managers in the South African mutual fund industry. Given the spectacular growth experienced in the South Africa mutual fund industry in the recent past, performance evaluation has not only become prominent in the financial sector but also is critically important to the future growth and development of the sector. The objective of this paper is to investigate the performance measurement and ranking of mutual funds using risk-adjusted performance measurement methods to determine whether funds outperformed the market benchmark. I investigate whether each performance measure results in significant excess returns during the 2001-2006 period for 15 mutual funds and whether the performance measures identify the same funds as the best-and worst-performing funds. I also use the Treynor and Mazuy (1966) quadratic model for assessing the selectivity and timing ability of fund managers.