Identification and Performance of Equity Mutual Funds with High Management Fees and Expense Ratios

Abstract

We apply a simple statistical method to identify domestic equity mutual funds with high management fees and expense ratios. The identified funds with management fees and expense ratios in the two highest standard deviation classes each represent 1.5% of Morningstar's total sample of 6,179 funds. We also examine the association of management fees and expense ratios to descriptive performance measures by Morningstar categories and overall across each of four standard deviation classes. We find a negative association between each performance measure and fund expense ratios in the Morningstar category overall but mixed results for management fees.