what is the sharpe ratio?or the shark ratio?
The Sharpe ratio is used to characterize how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken. When comparing two assets each with the expected return E[R] against the same benchmark with return Rf, the asset with the higher Sharpe ratio gives more return for the same risk. Investors are often advised to pick investments with high Sharpe ratios. However like any mathematical model it relies on the data being correct. Pyramid schemes with a long duration of operation would typically provide a high Sharpe ratio when derived from reported returns but the inputs are false. When examining the investment performance of assets with smoothing of returns (such as With profits funds) the Sharpe ratio should be derived from the performance of the underlying assets rather than the fund returns. Sharpe ratios, along with Treynor ratios and Jensen’s alphas, are often used to rank the performance of portfolio or mutual fund managers.
