How to understand the figures of my portfolio to obtain better results? (I) Discover 9 February 2017 , No hay comentarios It sounds very nice when you think that you have your own investment portfolio. It is an important step to improve your finances and get your goals. The question is that a portfolio has its own life since its inception and your responsibility as investor is guiding the portfolio to your interests. What are the signals that you have to follow? Well, there are many figures and parameters to measure the quality of your portfolio, but we will select the main ones in order to get the most important data: The performance evolution: the figure alone is not enough, because it has to be put in comparison to others. We recommend comparing it with the smart benchmark. This comparison provides the view to understand if we have chosen the right assets or not. For instance, this example shows that we are far from the benchmark and there is a wide improvement to manage. The weight of the assets in your portfolio: it is also relevant to understand the allocation. If we have a concentration in a country or a sector, there is a high risk to suffer from instability, if the trend changes. Diversification reduces risks, but we can have some assets with lower returns. A good analysis can help us look for similar assets with better figures in order to rebalance the portfolio. The relationship between performance and volatility: first of all, volatility does not mean necessarily more risky, as we have already commented. However, we can understand the connection between performance and volatility through the Sharpe ratio. This figure shows how profitable an investment is related to the historical volatility. The higher the ratio is, the better the investment is… but this idea is not totally right if we do not compare two assets. You can find two assets with similar ratios but with different figures. We have to look into the numbers to understand if it has a high performance with a high volatility. There are some other figures that we will soon comment.