Wednesday, February 10, 2010

SSRN-The Behavior of Hedge Funds During Liquidity Crises by Itzhak Ben-David, Francesco Franzoni, Rabih Moussawi

SSRN-The Behavior of Hedge Funds During Liquidity Crises by Itzhak Ben-David, Francesco Franzoni, Rabih Moussawi:

From teh Abstract:
"On average at the time of a crisis, hedge funds reduce their equity holdings by 9% to 11% per quarter (around 0.3% of total market capitalization). This effect results from large selling by up to a quarter of hedge funds and is not offset by other hedge funds expanding their positions. Dramatic sell-offs took place in the 2008 crisis: hedge funds sold about 30% of their stock holdings and almost every fourth hedge fund sold more than 40% of its equity portfolio. We identify two main drivers of this behavior. First, we impute about half of the variation in equity sell-offs to a response to lender and investor funding withdrawals. Second, it appears that hedge funds mobilize capital to other (potentially less liquid) markets in the pursuit of more profitable investment opportunities."

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