The Story and Logic behind the Consistency Index

 

In the early 90’s we were so impressed that Managed Account Reports (MAR) founded by Mort Baratz and Leon Rose provided a list of the best track records of managed futures traders.

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They provided the original “watering hole” for managed alternative investments.

Inspired, my colleagues and I offered managed futures traders as managed accounts to investors.

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However, many clients would tell us something to the effect of, “ I am not like other investors.  I am not trying to hit a home run; I just want to achieve consistent results”. Interestingly most investors held this belief that they were unique in wanting to achieve consistent results vs. "home run" results. As a result, we created the CTA Consistency Index.

 

We mailed postcards to lists of managed futures investors offering them the Top 10 Most Consistent CTAs' Newsletter and immediately we knew that we hit a real need. The response was overwhelming. Then when we posted the rankings on the internet ten years later, in January 2000, expanding it to include Hedge Funds in the Hedge Fund Consistency Index, and again the response was overwhelming; over 50,000 in total.

 

From 2000, we have of course experienced many interesting things such as the:

• Good, bad and the ugly of hedge funds (and traditional investments) during the market crisis

• The benefits and pitfalls of hedge funds vs. Mutual funds particularly in a market crisis

• A better understanding of outlier risk

• Maturity of the Hedge Fund industry. When we began, a three-year track record was practically a  cause célèbre . Now we can review 10 to 20-year records and examine funds that have been tested in the most trying market conditions and inflection points.

 

Through it all, our objective has been to identify historically the most consistent records.

We now have three Indices:

• The Consistency Index

• The Prevailing Index

• The Prevailing Reward to Risk Index

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Furthermore, we have updated The Consistency Index

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None of these indices are intended or able to predict future return or risk. Rather the objective is to highlight funds with a compelling performance that may warrant further investigation.

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Nor are the indices meant to be conclusive in any regard but rather to contribute to the overall conversation, screening and due diligence process of investment research. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. There is no guarantee against the loss of funds.

 

The reason that these indices were created was to:

• Enhanced the efficiency in identifying funds with a compelling performance that merit further investigation

• Address  limitations of traditional indices/rankings

 

It has been our experience that to find interesting funds in traditional indices/rankings, we have to pick through a plethora of funds that do not merit further investigation. Or to say in the medical parlance, many false positives.

 

For example, in the typical indices, we find 4 main problems that often render typical ranking screens inefficient and disappointing.

 

1. Long -Term / Near -Term results are not comparable, i.e.

   • That is the near results are good, long-term results are poor. For example, the 1, 3, and 5 years performance rankings, are often problematic because the prior years of 5 to 10 are often poor.

   • And or conversely, the long results are good, but the near-term results are poor. For example, in 10-year rankings, Often the near term such as the most recent 3-year results are often poor.

2. Low return, very low vol funds skew up to the top of the rankings. Not only will Reward to risk rankings (such as Average Return / Maximum Drawdown), be beset with long-term or near-term detritus mentioned in the prior two points but funds with so called "Low Vol" strategies  with very low vol tend to dominate and skew the rankings.

   • For example, if a fund has a .1% maximum drawdown, then even if it earns only 4%, its reward to risk will yield it a 40:1 ratio. 40:1 is great but not if the expected return is 4% and that is not even considering any outlier risk which might be implicit in the strategy but often not considered.

3. Overall returns may be good but wildly inconsistent throughout the years.

4. Different Length records. It is difficult to efficiently compare the performance of different length track records

 

We created 3 main index groups to address these inefficiencies. To put it another way, we reversed engineered our indices to find funds in which

1. Long-Term AND Near -Term results are more compelling than their peers.​

2. Low return, very low vol funds DO NOT skew up to the top of reward to risk rankings.

3. Consistent funds ranked the highest (on the Consistency Index).

4. Funds of Differing track lengths can be more efficiently compared.

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In brief:

1. The Prevailing Index “scores” the returns for the last ten year and the most recent 3 years. This addresses the first and second problems in which there is good long-term performance but not good short term performance or vice versa.​

2. The Prevailing Reward Risk Index “scores” the returns for the last ten year and the most recent 3 years on a reward to risk basis. This again addresses the first and second problems above of either good long-term reward to risk performance but not good short term reward to risk performance or vice versa.​ Additionally, in its formula, it assigns a minimum of 3% minimum maximum drawdown in the case where it is less so as discussed, an imperceptible drawdown history does not skew the reward to risk evaluation.

3. The Hedge Fund Consistency Index

   1. Takes into the account the items above but also addresses the consistency of the returns.

   2. And further to the objective of eliminating the skewing effects of low vol- low return funds, in its formula, it assigns a minimum of a 3% annual standard deviation and 3% minimum maximum drawdown in the case where either measure or both are less.

   3. Facilitates the comparing of funds with different length track records.

 

The Hedge Fund Consistency Index

 

Here is the Overview, the Consistency Formula and Further Explanation.

 

Overview

The general objectives are to:

1. Identify funds that have most consistency produced superior results in terms of:

   •  long term performance on a reward to risk basis (i.e. return to annualized standard deviation and return to maximum drawdown) and

   • Similarly, short term performance on a reward to risk basis

2. Enable the user to compare results of funds with different lengths of track records. The index rewards longer performance by multiplying results of the number of years (less 3 years to exclude rewarding funds with other only 3 year records).

3. Compare funds in the following 3 categories:

   • All funds

   • Separately Low Vol Funds with strategies such as the following funds because the Low Vol nature of these funds' track record may often be less likely to not reflect potential outlier Vol;

     • Arbitrage, Convertible Arbitrage, Credit, Debt, Dividend Capture, Equity Market Neutral, Fixed Income, Lending, Merger Arbitrage, Option Strategies, PIPEs, Settlement, Statistical Arbitrage, Stock Index, Arbitrage, Stock Index,Option Strategies, Structured 

       • Many of these funds will post low return with low vol and maximum drawdowns thus skewing reward to risk ratios. For example, a fund that has a .1% Annualized Standard Deviation and a 5% return would register a 50 to 1 ratio;

   • Separately Crypto Funds:

     • Many of these funds will post such high returns that they will skew reward to risk ratios. For example, a fund that has a 7,000% return and a 70% drawdown would register a 100 to 1 ratio;

   • Separately Higher Vol Strategies such as: 

     • Activist,Balanced (Stocks & Bonds), Closed-end funds, Discretionary, Distressed Securities, Emerging Markets, Equity Dedicated Short, Equity Long Only, Equity Long/Short, Equity Long-Bias, Equity Short-Bias, Event Driven, Fundamental - Agricultural, Fundamental - Currency, Fundamental - Diversified, Fundamental - Energy, Fundamental - Financial/Metals, Fundamental - Interest Rates, Macro, Stock Index, Systematic, Tail Risk, Technical - Agricultural, Technical - Currency, Technical - Diversified, Technical - Energy, Technical - Financial/Metals, Technical - Interest Rates, Volatility Trading