A customer alerted me about a new Q&A that is on the GIPS (Global Investment Performance Standards) website. I’ll save you the difficulty of looking it up and provide the particulars here. In the soul of full disclosure and a reasonable representation, firms must disclose the components that consist of the portfolio-weighted custom benchmark, including the weights that all component represents, by the newest annual period end.
Firms should also offer to provide these details for prior intervals upon demand. Our client, and we as well, found this process to benchmarking unusual quiet. Usually, when we think of the custom benchmark it is constructed to align with a strategy for which a single benchmark doesn’t work (e.g., a well-balanced strategy, whereby we’d find a collateral and fixed income element).
Here, the supervisor has a composite where the underlying portfolios all align with different benchmarks. I would react to the relevant question with a series of questions. Does the manager manage differently for every of the client benchmarks actually, or does the manager manage against a common benchmark? If it’s a common benchmark, then it ought to be the main one that’s used.
If the supervisor manages differently for every client, in accordance with their respective standard, then why aren’t they using different composites, since the benchmark is appropriate criteria for amalgamated construction? If the supervisor feels that the differences between the portfolios is not materials, it quickly would recommend them to choose one of the benchmarks and use that.
- High maximum amount
- Safe-deposit box
- 4 years back from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Five-year payment method
What value is a benchmark that demonstrates a dynamic mixture of underlying benchmarks, each representing the strategy for of a different client? And asset-weighting them means that the bigger account’s benchmark guidelines, yes? And don’t forget, the firm can provide additional benchmarks for research purposes, too! I believe this question phone calls into the problem of the role of the composite benchmark: could it be not to provide a basis to compare the manager’s successful execution of their strategy? If the supervisor is controlling across multiple benchmarks, they could be successful with one and failure with another: merging them means what, then? This is an interesting topic, I believe, and one worth some representation, too. Your ideas are welcome.
The first is economic. By charging no transactions fees and depending completely on modest advertising charges initially, Alibaba made itself a bargain to retailers, relative to competitors. The second reason is that Alibaba shaped its offerings to Chinese language consumer and culture behavior. The Economist’s characterization of TaoBao as an internet bazaar is apt, because the site is colorful, chaotic, and set up for online haggling between retailers and buyers.
Third, the site is also attuned to the fact that the Chinese retail market is splintered, with a large number of small and mid-sized suppliers who lack presence, payment, and reliability handling skills online and TaoBao offer all of those. In every segment, Alibaba is not just the leader but an overwhelming one.
Future: The domination of Alibaba creates a network impact, since suppliers have to go where the customers are now, and as a result, they need to be on an Alibaba site to be noticed. That, subsequently, make it easier for Alibaba to get more customers, as the entire market grows, keeping the expense of customer acquisition low for the company.