The Role of Investment Philosophy in Evaluating Investment Managers

Abstract

Because returns have a substantial random element, investment philosophy analysis is a critical component of evaluating an investment manager. Despite this, most investment management firms do not have well-articulated investment philosophies; many are mere marketing slogans rather than thoughtful encapsulations of the investment insights an investment process is designed to exploit. The absence of well-articulated investment philosophies compounds the challenge of differentiating alpha from noise, and alpha-generators from alpha-pretenders. By not better articulating their philosophies, true alpha-generators are passing up an opportunity to distinguish themselves from the pretenders.