Islamic Fund Managers' Market Timing Abilities and their Impact on Fund Performances

Abstract

This study examines Shariah-compliant fund's financial performance compared to conventional funds based on managerial timing abilities. Compared with traditional fund managers' timing skills, the study focuses on the most neglected area of Shariah-compliant manager timing abilities, liquidity, and volatility timing abilities. The study uses 69 funds whose significant exposure is the equity between January 2010 and June 2022, consisting of three investment styles: equity, asset allocation, and balanced funds. The study incorporates volatility factors based on Busse (1999) and liquidity factors from Amihud (2002) into the Carhart (1997) four-factor model. The study found that Islamic fund managers have better liquidity and volatility timing skills than conventional fund managers. The results are robust for analyzing individual funds based on different liquidity measures. There is no substantial evidence that Islamic and traditional fund managers can predict market returns.