Absolute Return vs Relative Return
#investopedia
Knowing whether a fund manager or broker is doing a good job can be a challenge for some investors. It's difficult to define what good is, because it depends on how the rest of the market has been performing. For example in a bull market, 2% is a horrible return. But in a bear market, when most investors are down 20%, just preserving your capital would be considered a triumph. In that case, 2% doesn't look so bad.
So, the absolute return is simply whatever an asset or portfolio returned over a certain period. In the paragraph above, the 2% we mentioned would be the absolute return. If a mutual fund returned 8% last year, then that 8% would be its absolute return. Pretty simple stuff.
Relative return, on the other hand, is the difference between the absolute return and the performance of the market (or other similar investments), which is gauged by a benchmark, or index, such as the S&P 500. Relative return is the reason why a 2% return is bad in a bull market and good in a bear market.
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What's the difference between absolute and relative return? [imagelink]
A:
<span>Knowing whether a fund manager or broker is doing a good job can be a challenge for some investors. It's difficult to define what good is, because it depends on how the rest of the market has been performing. For example in a bull market, 2% is a horrible return. But in a bear market, when most investors are down 20%, just preserving your capital would be considered a triumph. In that case, 2% doesn't look so bad.
So, the absolute return is simply whatever an asset or portfolio returned over a certain period. In the paragraph above, the 2% we mentioned would be the absolute return. If a mutual fund returned 8% last year, then that 8% would be its absolute return. Pretty simple stuff. Relative return, on the other hand, is the difference between the absolute return and the performance of the market (or other similar investments), which is gauged by a benchmark, or index, such as the S&P 500. Relative return is the reason why a 2% return is bad in a bull market and good in a bear market. (If you aren't familiar with indexes, read more on them in our Index Investing tutorial). Relative return is important because it is a way to measure the performance of actively managed funds, which should get a return greater than that of the market. After all, you can alwa