The mutual funds puzzle and the elusive von Neumann-Morgenstern preference relation

This research studies the Mutual Funds Puzzle from the viewpoint of an economic agent that satisfies the von Neumann-Morgenstern preference relation. We postulate that the probability of a fund manager to outperform the market decreases in a growing market. To examine this supposition, we prove that a risk-averse investor's behavior is consistent with the binary econometric model and develop a ranking methodology for mutual funds' performances. We find supporting evidence for our conjecture in examining the Israeli capital market during 1/1/2009–3/13/2022. Subsequently, we conclude that investors regard mutual funds as hedging instruments for countering unexpected events rather than investment instruments.