Last week we started to look at why the asset management industry and its clients have mostly chosen to avoid isolating the portfolio managers’ skill and paying them accordingly. It seems perverse not to, but the causes are a potent mix of hubris, greed and technical complications.
The complications revolve around attribution of skill. Even in this day and age when each and every trade on advanced exchanges can be analysed, it is not easy to match cause with effect precisely.
One severe attempt to do so is the market-neutral strategy, wherein portfolio managers buy or sell (short) stocks in such quantities that there is no aggregate bias towards the direction of the market. This high wire balancing act would seem like a real means of isolating alpha. But most clients are not ready for the measly returns.