I am conducting a GIPS(R) (Global Investment Performance Standards) verification for a client who asks their clients to provide a "personal benchmark." That is, the return the client hopes to get on an annual basis. Assuming there will be cash flows during the year,...
Performance Perspectives Blog
Thoughts on performance measurement from David Spaulding and other members of our team.
Personal returns … how do they fit in?
read more
20 years and counting
Earlier this week my TSG colleagues and I went to lunch to celebrate our 20th anniversary in business. And, they presented me with a beautiful pen to commemorate this event.Because we have a decimal (i.e., base 10) system of counting, we focus on years ending with...
A client reporting “no no”
It appears at times that reports are designed to convey how smart the sender is. And while this is perhaps not normally the intent, it can nevertheless be the message. Sending a client, for example, the results of a complicated fixed income attribution model, when we...
“Logic does not require empirical verification”
The above quote comes from Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness, which I started to read over the weekend while vacationing at the Jersey Shore (light reading). I'm finding that the book, as with his later Black Swans, has many interesting insights. But this quote, to...
Performance and risk from a parallaxical perspective
I want to thank William McKibbin for introducing me to a new word: parallax. He used it in a response to one of my recent posts and I must admit that I was forced to look up its meaning, because it was new to me. Dr. McKibbin has a blog which I frequently visit, and...
Whose risk is it anyway?
Last week I interviewed Northfield Information Services' founder and president, Dan diBartolomeo for The Journal of Performance Measurement(R). Dan shared many insights with me, and I'm sure our readers will find his thoughts and comments quite compelling. One thing...
Going back in time
An interesting question was posed to me recently; one that I hadn't previously thought about. A client who wants to become compliant with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS(R)) has three strategies, each of which has been in existence for 20 years, and...
Be careful when negative market values show up!
I'm reviewing a client's performance measurement system and came across an interesting example of how negative market values can wreak havoc with your reporting. What I'll be showing aren't exactly the numbers, but the problem is the same. We begin the month with $20...
The way we always do it isn’t necessarily the way to do it
What a blog title, huh? Anyway, you'll soon get my point. In last night's game against the Cleveland Indians, with men on first and second and one out, the Minnesota Twins did what they're supposed to do: move the runners along. And so, they had their catcher, Joe...
“Men have had recourse to many calculations”
The sources of inspiration for blog pieces seems almost infinite. Today, while reading the bible, I found the above quote (it's from the book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 7, verse 29). Men (and women), in general, obviously have many calculations to draw upon; and even we...