Equity Mutual Fund Manager Sentiment and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns
Document Type
Presentation
Date of Original Version
3-27-2026
Abstract
Institutional investors control seventy percent of U.S. equity markets, yet existing sentiment measures do not capture professional managers' revealed risk appetite. We construct an Equity Mutual Fund Manager Sentiment index from the 27-month moving average returns of active equity funds across small-cap growth, multi-cap value, and general equity categories. This measure predicts cross-sectional returns for sentiment-sensitive stocks more effectively than established market-level sentiment indices. Manager sentiment declined three standard deviations during the 2008-2009 financial crisis while Baker-Wurgler sentiment registered one and one-half standard deviations, demonstrating superior crisis sensitivity. Granger causality tests confirm manager sentiment predicts market-level sentiment at monthly horizons but not vice versa. Our findings show that sophisticated investors' response to sentiment depends on arbitrage feasibility: they amplify sentiment-driven mispricing where arbitrage is difficult through momentum strategies and style rotations, but arbitrage mispricing in tangible assets where uncertainty is lower. This establishes institutional risk appetite as a distinct state variable in cross-sectional asset pricing that reflects the interaction between behavioral patterns and limits to arbitrage.
Recommended Citation
Kasirian, Milad and Tsafack, Georges, "Equity Mutual Fund Manager Sentiment and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns" (2026). Oral Presentations. Paper 2.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gradcon2026-presentations/2