10.05.2022 Morningstar presents our latest study on narcissism to fund managers

Photo: Morningstar

One of our recent studies, 'Fund Manager Narcissism' (Anna-Lena Bauer, Dominik Scheld and Oscar Stolper) was presented to a wide circle of interested financial market participants on the influential US fund platform Morningstar.

In the study, we show a significant influence of narcissism on the work of fund management and document three key findings. First, narcissism is even more prevalent among fund managers than among CEOs. Moreover, narcissistic fund managers generate significantly lower risk-adjusted returns and often deviate from the investment style advertised in the fund's prospectus. Overall, the results suggest that retail investors are worse off when their equity funds are managed by narcissistic managers.

Many thanks to Emma Rapaport for her great preparation of our key study results. You can find the Morningstar column here.