Performance of mutual funds in Nigeria

The study examines the performance of 37 mutual funds distributed over six broad portfolio classes traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange using monthly data from January 2012 to December 2015, with a view to evaluating the stock selection skills of the fund managers. Their performance was evaluated using the Sharpe and Treynor ratios and Jensen's Alpha measure. The results showed that the market generally generated negative risk premium and the mutual fund portfolios similarly generated negative mean excess return, failing to compensate investors for investing in risky assets. The Sharpe, Treynor and Jensen's Alpha measures showed that the funds consistently failed to provide superior risk-adjusted returns and so fund managers cannot claim to have demonstrated any form of stock selection or portfolio diversification skill.