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Look-Ahead Benchmark Bias in Portfolio Performance Evaluation

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Author Info
Gilles Daniel
Didier Sornette
Peter Wohrmann
Abstract

Performance of investment managers are evaluated in comparison with benchmarks, such as financial indices. Due to the operational constraint that most professional databases do not track the change of constitution of benchmark portfolios, standard tests of performance suffer from the "look-ahead benchmark bias," when they use the assets constituting the benchmarks of reference at the end of the testing period, rather than at the beginning of the period. Here, we report that the "look-ahead benchmark bias" can exhibit a surprisingly large amplitude for portfolios of common stocks (up to 8% annum for the S&P500 taken as the benchmark) -- while most studies have emphasized related survival biases in performance of mutual and hedge funds for which the biases can be expected to be even larger. We use the CRSP database from 1926 to 2006 and analyze the running top 500 US capitalizations to demonstrate that this bias can account for a gross overestimation of performance metrics such as the Sharpe ratio as well as an underestimation of risk, as measured for instance by peak-to-valley drawdowns. We demonstrate the presence of a significant bias in the estimation of the survival and look-ahead biases studied in the literature. A general methodology to test the properties of investment strategies is advanced in terms of random strategies with similar investment constraints.

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File URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.1922
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Paper provided by arXiv.org in its series Quantitative Finance Papers with number 0810.1922.

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Date of creation: Oct 2008
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Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:0810.1922

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  1. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Stepwise Multiple Testing as Formalized Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1282, 07. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Carpenter, Jennifer N. & Lynch, Anthony W., 1999. "Survivorship bias and attrition effects in measures of performance persistence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 337-374, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Elton, Edwin J & Gruber, Martin J & Blake, Christopher R, 1996. "Survivorship Bias and Mutual Fund Performance," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(4), pages 1097-1120. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan, 1992. " The Persistence of Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(5), pages 1977-84, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Halbert White, 2000. "A Reality Check for Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1097-1126, September.
  6. Brown, Stephen J & Goetzmann, William N & Ibbotson, Roger G, 1999. "Offshore Hedge Funds: Survival and Performance, 1989-95," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(1), pages 91-117, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Horst, J.R. ter & Verbeek, M.J.C.M., 2004. "Fund liquidation, self-selection and look-ahead bias in the hedge fund industry," Research Paper ERS-2004-104-F&A Revision, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Mark M. Carhart & Jennifer N. Carpenter & Anthony W. Lynch & David K. Musto, 2002. "Mutual Fund Survivorship," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1439-1463.
  9. ter Horst, Jenke R. & Nijman, Theo E. & Verbeek, Marno, 2001. "Eliminating look-ahead bias in evaluating persistence in mutual fund performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 345-373, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Baquero, Guillermo & ter Horst, Jenke & Verbeek, Marno, 2005. "Survival, Look-Ahead Bias, and Persistence in Hedge Fund Performance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(03), pages 493-517, September. [Downloadable!]
  11. Brown, Stephen J, et al, 1992. "Survivorship Bias in Performance Studies," Review of Financial Studies, Oxford University Press for Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(4), pages 553-80. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. William N. Goetzmann & Stephen J. Brown, 2005. "Performance Persistence," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm451, Yale School of Management. [Downloadable!]
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