This note explores the selection of investment managers and the performance-measurement tools associated with this important task. In selecting investment options for a firm’s 401(k) plan, identifying possible managers to oversee a portion of an endowment’s or foundation’s investment portfolio, or a retail investor’s decision of which fund to choose for their regular investment account, investment performance is likely to play an important role. In this technical note, we explore a number of different performance measures that may be used to select managers, including total return, alpha, and information ratio, and a key risk measurement used in this approach, tracking error.
