DEFINITION
By Staff Reporters
SPONSOR: http://www.MarcinkoAssociates.com
***
***
The Information Ratio (IR) is a risk-adjusted rate of return measure for comparing the performance of active investment managers over time. Its purpose is to help determine how much return an active portfolio manager has added per unit of active management risk.
Think of IR as a Sharpe Ratio for active investment management; the IR is more focused than the Sharpe Ratio. Starting with the Sharpe Ratio’s formula, if we replace the excess return in the numerator with a portfolio’s active return (the average annualized return of an actively managed portfolio minus the average annualized return of the portfolio’s benchmark over a given period, adjusted for the portfolio’s market risk exposure), and you replace the Sharpe Ratio’s standard deviation of excess returns in the denominator with the standard deviation of a portfolio’s active returns over the period, you have the IR.
While the Sharpe Ratio expresses the amount of excess return per unit of overall risk, the IR computes only the active management-driven (alpha) returns per unit of alpha-driven risk. And while the Sharpe Ratio’s excess returns are calculated with regard to what is considered to be a relatively risk-free asset, such as a U.S. Treasury bill, the IR’s active returns are calculated with regard to each portfolio’s specific market benchmark.
The higher the IR, the better. The IR should be measured over a meaningful period of time, typically at least three to five years. The IR is not perfect–it can be influenced by external factors such as changes in market volatility. The standard deviation of active returns in the IR’s denominator is called tracking error. Tracking error will tend to increase in volatile markets for even the best active managers.
COMMENTS APPRECIATED
Subscribe Today
FINANCIAL PLANNING: https://tinyurl.com/yc7bcy4u
***
Filed under: "Ask-an-Advisor", Funding Basics, Glossary Terms, Health Economics, iMBA, Inc., Investing, Marcinko Associates | Tagged: iMBA, information ratio, Institute Medical Business Advisors, Marcinko, medical executive post, Sharpe Ratio, tracking error | Leave a comment »














