IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v33y2009i7p1242-1254.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Portfolio performance evaluation with generalized Sharpe ratios: Beyond the mean and variance

Author

Listed:
  • Zakamouline, Valeri
  • Koekebakker, Steen

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretically sound portfolio performance measure that takes into account higher moments of distribution. This measure is motivated by a study of the investor's preferences to higher moments of distribution within Expected Utility Theory and an approximation analysis of the optimal capital allocation problem. We show that this performance measure justifies the notion of the Generalized Sharpe Ratio (GSR) introduced by Hodges (1998). We present two methods of practical estimation of the GSR: nonparametric and parametric. For the implementation of the parametric method we derive a closed-form solution for the GSR where the higher moments are calibrated to the normal inverse Gaussian distribution. We illustrate how the GSR can mitigate the shortcomings of the Sharpe ratio in resolution of Sharpe ratio paradoxes and reveal the real performance of portfolios with manipulated Sharpe ratios. We also demonstrate the use of this measure in the performance evaluation of hedge funds.

Suggested Citation

  • Zakamouline, Valeri & Koekebakker, Steen, 2009. "Portfolio performance evaluation with generalized Sharpe ratios: Beyond the mean and variance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1242-1254, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:33:y:2009:i:7:p:1242-1254
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-4266(09)00013-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Madan, Dilip B & Seneta, Eugene, 1990. "The Variance Gamma (V.G.) Model for Share Market Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(4), pages 511-524, October.
    2. Post, Thierry & van Vliet, Pim & Levy, Haim, 2008. "Risk aversion and skewness preference," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1178-1187, July.
    3. Farinelli, Simone & Ferreira, Manuel & Rossello, Damiano & Thoeny, Markus & Tibiletti, Luisa, 2008. "Beyond Sharpe ratio: Optimal asset allocation using different performance ratios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 2057-2063, October.
    4. Jonathan Ingersoll & Ivo Welch, 2007. "Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measures," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1503-1546, 2007 17.
    5. Dowd, Kevin, 2000. "Adjusting for risk:: An improved Sharpe ratio," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 209-222, July.
    6. Bawa, Vijay S., 1978. "Safety-First, Stochastic Dominance, and Optimal Portfolio Choice," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 255-271, June.
    7. Haley, M. Ryan & McGee, M. Kevin, 2006. "Tilting safety first and the Sharpe portfolio," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 173-180, September.
    8. Merton, Robert C., 1980. "On estimating the expected return on the market : An exploratory investigation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 323-361, December.
    9. Eling, Martin & Schuhmacher, Frank, 2007. "Does the choice of performance measure influence the evaluation of hedge funds?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 2632-2647, September.
    10. Kraus, Alan & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1976. "Skewness Preference and the Valuation of Risk Assets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1085-1100, September.
    11. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    12. De Giorgi, Enrico, 2005. "Reward-risk portfolio selection and stochastic dominance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 895-926, April.
    13. Fishburn, Peter C, 1977. "Mean-Risk Analysis with Risk Associated with Below-Target Returns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 116-126, March.
    14. Vikas Agarwal, 2004. "Risks and Portfolio Decisions Involving Hedge Funds," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 63-98.
    15. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    16. William Goetzmann & Jonathan Ingersoll & Matthew I. Spiegel & Ivo Welch, 2002. "Sharpening Sharpe Ratios," NBER Working Papers 9116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    18. Constantinides, George M, 1990. "Habit Formation: A Resolution of the Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 519-543, June.
    19. Rachev, Svetlozar & Jasic, Teo & Stoyanov, Stoyan & Fabozzi, Frank J., 2007. "Momentum strategies based on reward-risk stock selection criteria," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2325-2346, August.
    20. Treynor, Jack L & Black, Fischer, 1973. "How to Use Security Analysis to Improve Portfolio Selection," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 66-86, January.
    21. He, Hua & Leland, Hayne, 1993. "On Equilibrium Asset Price Processes," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(3), pages 593-617.
    22. Friend, Irwin & Blume, Marshall E, 1975. "The Demand for Risky Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(5), pages 900-922, December.
    23. Antonio E. Bernardo & Olivier Ledoit, 2000. "Gain, Loss, and Asset Pricing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 144-172, February.
    24. Karlis, Dimitris, 2002. "An EM type algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation of the normal-inverse Gaussian distribution," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 43-52, March.
    25. Cass, David & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "The structure of investor preferences and asset returns, and separability in portfolio allocation: A contribution to the pure theory of mutual funds," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 122-160, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fischer, Thomas & Lundtofte, Frederik, 2020. "Unequal returns: Using the Atkinson index to measure financial risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    2. Caporin, Massimiliano & Costola, Michele & Jannin, Gregory & Maillet, Bertrand, 2018. "“On the (Ab)use of Omega?”," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 11-33.
    3. Valeri Zakamouline, 2014. "Portfolio performance evaluation with loss aversion," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 699-710, April.
    4. Anthonisz, Sean A., 2012. "Asset pricing with partial-moments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 2122-2135.
    5. León, Ángel & Moreno, Manuel, 2015. "Lower Partial Moments under Gram Charlier Distribution: Performance Measures and Efficient Frontiers," QM&ET Working Papers 15-3, University of Alicante, D. Quantitative Methods and Economic Theory.
    6. Bahaji, Hamza & Aberkane, Salah, 2016. "How rational could VIX investing be?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 556-568.
    7. Massimiliano Caporin & Grégory M. Jannin & Francesco Lisi & Bertrand B. Maillet, 2014. "A Survey On The Four Families Of Performance Measures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 917-942, December.
    8. Kent Smetters & Xingtan Zhang, 2013. "A Sharper Ratio: A General Measure for Correctly Ranking Non-Normal Investment Risks," NBER Working Papers 19500, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Auer, Benjamin R., 2015. "Does the choice of performance measure influence the evaluation of commodity investments?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 142-150.
    10. Darolles, Serge & Gourieroux, Christian, 2010. "Conditionally fitted Sharpe performance with an application to hedge fund rating," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 578-593, March.
    11. Bahaji, Hamza & Casta, Jean-François, 2016. "Employee stock option-implied risk attitude under Rank-Dependent Expected Utility," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PA), pages 144-154.
    12. Roelof Salomons, 2008. "A Theoretical And Practical Perspective On The Equity Risk Premium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 299-329, April.
    13. Homm, Ulrich & Pigorsch, Christian, 2012. "Beyond the Sharpe ratio: An application of the Aumann–Serrano index to performance measurement," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 2274-2284.
    14. Meyer, Donald J. & Meyer, Jack, 2005. "Risk preferences in multi-period consumption models, the equity premium puzzle, and habit formation utility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1497-1515, November.
    15. Wonnho Choi, 2014. "Habit Formation and Risk-free Rate Puzzle," International Journal of Financial Research, International Journal of Financial Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 5(4), pages 155-170, October.
    16. Chaigneau, Pierre, 2013. "Explaining the structure of CEO incentive pay with decreasing relative risk aversion," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 4-23.
    17. Calvet, Laurent-Emmanuel & Grandmont, Jean-Michel & Lemaire, Isabelle, 2018. "Aggregation of heterogenous beliefs, asset pricing, and risk sharing in complete financial markets," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 117-146.
    18. Penaranda, Francisco, 2007. "Portfolio choice beyond the traditional approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24481, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine & Lo, Andrew W., 2000. "Nonparametric risk management and implied risk aversion," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 9-51.
    20. León, Angel & Navarro, Lluís & Nieto, Belén, 2019. "Screening rules and portfolio performance," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 642-662.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:33:y:2009:i:7:p:1242-1254. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.