Cash Holdings and the Performance of European Mutual Funds

We investigate the determinants and performance implications of cash holdings for a large sample of actively-managed equity funds domiciled in the European Union (EU). In line with recent evidence from the US, we observe that cash holdings are strongly inuenced by a fund's fee structure, past ows and ow volatility, and a fund's Investment strategy. EU Funds with cash holdings in excess of the level predicted by fund attributes (i.e., high abnormal cash funds) outperform their low abnormal cash peers by risk-adjusted 0.96% per annum.