Performance metrics
Performance metrics answer the first question anyone asks about an asset: how has it done? Every asset page on OHLCX Markets shows the answer over more than one stretch of time, because one number on its own is easy to misread.
What a trailing return is
A trailing return is the percentage change in price from a point in the past to now. "Trailing" means the window moves with the calendar: today's one-month return covers a different month than yesterday's did.
That makes it a fair way to compare assets. Two funds measured over the same trailing window faced the same market, whatever date either of them launched.
The figures on an asset page
Each asset page has a Performance section. The return figures in it are:
- 1 month return
- The change over the past month. It moves quickly and reflects recent news, earnings and sentiment more than anything lasting.
- 3 month return
- The change over the last three months: long enough to smooth out a single bad week, short enough to show a turn in direction.
- Year-to-date window
- The risk figures beside the returns are worked out on daily returns from the first trading day of the year, and the page states the exact dates it used.
Gains are shown in green and losses in red, so the direction reads before the number does.
How to read them together
The two windows are most useful side by side. When the one-month figure is well ahead of the three-month one, the move is recent and may not have been tested. When the three-month figure is strong and the one-month figure is flat or negative, the advance is pausing or giving ground.
Agreement matters too. An asset that is up over both windows is in a steadier position than one that owes its whole quarter to a single week.
What returns leave out
A return says where the price ended up, not what it took to get there. Two assets can both be up ten percent, one after a calm climb and the other after falling by a third along the way. That is what the risk figures are for, and why the page shows them in the same place.
Returns here are price returns from market data. They are a description of the past and not a forecast.
Performance metrics, answered
Is a higher one-month return always better?
No. A large one-month gain often comes with large swings, and a short window can be flattered by a single day. Check it against the three-month figure and the drawdown before reading much into it.
Why do the figures change every day?
The windows trail the calendar. Each day the oldest day drops out and the newest comes in, so the figure moves even when today's price barely does.
Do the returns include dividends?
They are calculated from price bars, so they reflect price change. A fund that pays a large distribution will show a little less here than its total return.
Which assets have performance metrics?
Every asset page with price data has them. A few symbols are listed with questions and answers only until their market data is loaded.
More about what an asset page shows
Risk characteristics
How rough the ride has been: drawdown, volatility, and return per unit of risk.
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