https://www.coindesk.com/author/lawrence-lewitinn/
There are just seven weeks left in the year, and it seems there’s no consensus on who will win out: the HODLers (steadfast accumulators) or the profit-takers.
We’re approaching Christmas and many expect the art of window dressing to take hold.
No, not on the streets of our towns, where shops prepare far too early for holiday sales. Rather, we’re talking the lengths portfolio managers are said to go to make it look like they made all the right bets in 2021.
Is that what could be coming for the cryptocurrency markets in the next few weeks? If past mutual fund behavior is any guide, window dressing may not be a driving factor, but there are still things portfolio managers do – or don’t do – that help drive up asset prices in their portfolios before New Year’s Eve.
For those unfamiliar with the theory, window dressing is the idea that portfolio managers sell their losing positions and buy more of their winners ahead of year-end reporting so they look like they’ve been making all the right moves. Among other consequences, that could punish already-losing securities and pump winners even higher.
Many studies have been done suggesting that may be the case, but they usually use quarter-end data to come up with their conclusions.
However, one study published in 2014 in the Review of Financial Studies used actual mutual fund equity trading data from 1999 to 2010. While not finding evidence of typical “window dressing,” researchers Gang Hu, R. David McLean, Jeffrey Pontiff and Qinghai Wang found something more nuanced.
