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Investment Statistics Can Be Fragile

December 1, 2020 | Commentary

  • Investment statistics have over the last few decades gained increasing importance in the management and marketing of funds and portfolios.  Unfortunately, they can sometimes give the impression of more scientific basis and predictability than they can deliver.
  • Beta – the common term for the sensitivity of a stock or fund with respect to the general market – is one of the most common statistics used in equity investing.  It provides an expectation for how a stock or a fund should behave in different market situations.  The COVID-19 market disruptions that began in February of this year were so extreme as to make many market betas almost useless as a predictive tool.
  • Most long-only equity managers could deal with the statistical disarray as they more often use a wealth of fundamental information and insights to make stock selections versus a heavy reliance on statistical models.  Long-short equity and quantitative hedge funds that target low portfolio betas tended to be more challenged in 2020.
  • Offit Capital considers and reports the standard investment statistics when evaluating managers and suggesting portfolio allocations but is never dependent upon them.  We understand that these statistics can be a useful diagnostic tool, but they should never be considered as reliable windows into the future.  2020 provided yet another reminder about how fragile investment statistics can be.        

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