I am reading, or more correctly, listening to, the classic, Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. It is a massive work, which rightly deseves the praise it has received. Perhaps not surprisingly, if you've been a reader of my commentary for long, I have found something...
Performance Perspectives Blog
Thoughts on performance measurement from David Spaulding and other members of our team.
Learning from Cervantes
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Strategy vs. Tactics: Lessons from a Japanese Market Investor
Frank Sortino, PhD, occasionally tells the following story:There was a pension plan that was looking for a Japanese market investor. They found one who had superior performance. Unfortunately, he also had a high tracking error. When their concerns were presented, the...
An example of why we don’t annualize for periods less than a year
This weekend's WSJ reports that "U.S. stocks ended the first week of 2013 up 3.8%." Some might want to annualize this figure, to get a sense of what the year will look like. To do so, we can simply raise 1.038 to the 52nd power, and subtract one.And when we do this we...
Are GIPS verifiers required to search for fraud?
Over the past few years there have been at least two lawsuits filed, where an asset manager had committed fraud, either with a Ponzi scheme or some other means, and where the firm had claimed compliance with GIPS(R) (Global Investment Performance Standards). When...
Should there be a minimum number of months to calculate standard deviation?
You're probably familiar with the expression "just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should." There have been several times where this saying has come in handy, and this post deals with one more case: standard deviation.In performance measurement we can...
What to do with the cash that you just created for your client
We often get questions about a problem all asset managers face: a client requests you to sell some of his/her/their securities, to free up cash that they plan to withdraw. Between the time that the cash is created and it's finally taken by the client, it's sitting in...
Having a risk policy is only part of the solution
A recent WSJ headline referenced one major bank's problems as regulators challenge its risk management practices. This made me think of comments I usually make during our firm's Fundamentals of Performance Measurement course, when I touch on risk management: having a...
Seasons’ Greetings from TSG
This has been quite a year. We've had our ups, and our downs, just like all years. Overall, TSG had a great year. Our verification practice continues to grow, and our GIPS(R) verification clients now number more than 100. Our PMAR conferences both had record...
Spreadsheet-based systems: a case in point
The Spaulding Group's December newsletter deals with the use of spreadsheets, and their all too frequent use as "systems." I point out, as I've done countless times elsewhere, that they are:time-consumingerror pronecumbersomenot databasesand so should be avoided,...
Attribution is part of our daily lives
When I teach our fundamentals of performance or attribution classes, I often mention how we adopt ideas from other segments of society. Measuring performance, for example, is found in many areas, with sports perhaps being the most thorough (with baseball leading the...