Equity mutual funds operating in Turkey: evaluation of 2012-2016 period performances by morningstar star rating system

There are many different methods of evaluation of mutual funds to choose from for investors who would wish to put their savings into the capital markets due to the various advantages that are accrued from such ventures. These performance evaluations hold different degrees of importance to different groups of people including existing investors as well as potential investors, fund managers, fund founders and other stakeholders on the market who would wish to have knowledge about the outcome of their investment and act accordingly. There are many studies in the literature with similar purpose and which discuss the performance concept from various angles. In this study, 60 monthly performance of equity mutual funds which trade in Turkey were taken over the January 2012 – December 2016 period and examined using Morningstar Star Rating System. The 57 mutual funds were then ranked based on their performance results. The results show that there is a relation between the beta coefficients of the funds and the star ratings they receive, the same cannot however be said in the relationship between standard deviations and average returns. It was determined that the most successful funds are generally foreign equity funds while the least successful funds are generally index funds. However, it was concluded that only two of the funds in the study have achieved a truly superior performance. Keywords: Mutual Funds, Performance Evaluation, Morningstar.