Hakki Ozturk

The objective of this study is to investigate the performance persistence of Turkish mutual and pension funds. 310 mutual and 259 pension funds were analyzed between the period of 2010–2019 in order to determine if there is an evidence of performance persistence. In this study, a persistence rate is developed, and the skill ratio is used to crosscheck the results of the persistence rate. Furthermore, six different risk-adjusted return measures, such as Sharpe, Treynor, Information, Jensen’s alpha, Sortino, and Omega ratios are calculated to analyze whether funds also exhibit superior risk-adjusted returns. The results indicate that only 2% of funds demonstrate persistence above 50%, and 15 out of 20 fund categories do not have any funds that show persistence in 10 years. Most of the persistent funds have positive skill ratios, and it is observed that the persistence rate is effective. However, it cannot be stated that there is performance persistence in the Turkish fund management industry, since performance persistence is not evident for various fund types, so investors do not need to invest in the best funds of the previous year. Additionally, the empirical results associated with risk-adjusted performance analysis indicate that persistent funds also do not generally yield higher risk-adjusted returns. The lack of persistence in funds’ performance is a significant result for investors in their investment decisions, for fund managers in their human resource policies and bonus schemes, and for regulators in their policy decisions.

This study focuses on the relationship between financial ratios and the technology and telecommunication stock returns listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Since technology and telecommunication sector has become an important part of the Turkish economy and is attractive for investors and shareholders, the results play a critical role for all stakeholders. This academic work aims to determine, through the application of panel data analysis, using both the Parks-Kmenta estimator and the Two-way Mixed Effects Model, whether the Price-to-Sales, Earnings per Share (EPS), Debt-to-Equity, and EBITDA Margin financial ratios affect the returns of technology and telecommunication stock returns listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. According to empirical findings, Earnings per Share (EPS), EBITDA Margin, and Price-to-Sales ratios have statistically significant effects on technology and telecommunication companies’ stock returns. Higher EPS and EBITDA Margin ratios generate higher returns for the next quarters, and lower Price-to-Sales ratios lead to higher returns for the following periods. Furthermore, the results obtained using the Two-way Mixed Effects Model show that the Debt-to-Equity ratio is negatively related to stock returns.