Alpha risk is a ratio that your portfolio manager uses to compare her picks for your fund or portfolio against a benchmark (that could be other funds or the S&P 500).

If your manager picks a bunch of stocks and investments that push your fund up 10% in a year when the S&P 500 (or whatever the benchmark is) is doing 8%, your manager gets bragging rights (and possibly a nicer office and a promotion).

Alpha risk is often expressed in math equations that would only make a mathlete happy, but the main thing to remember is that when someone talks about High Alpha, that's good (low Alpha is bad).

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Finance: What is Alpha?11 Views

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Finance allah shmoop what is alfa All right well you've

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heard of the alfa dog the alfa male an alfa

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bet soup investing alfa is good when you have a

00:14

lot of it If your index iii the set of

00:17

investment returns numbers you were being measured against was saying

00:22

the s and p five hundred and it went up

00:24

eleven percent last year and you ve a trading or

00:28

investing in stocks and maybe options and whatever other vehicles

00:32

you deployed like dead and you know leverage and you

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were on lee up eight percent last year Well then

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you had low alfa sorry just keeping it real You

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actually destroyed value after all your hard work from that

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year you could have done nothing I he just let

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your money sick and an s and p five hundred

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index fund played golf all day and night If you

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you know had those glow in the dark ball thing

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is and you would have done three hundred basis points

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better than you did trying teo you know outsmart mr

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market So hi alfa Good low alfa bad unlike your

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Up Next

Finance: What is a Random Walk hypothesis?
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The random walk hypothesis is a financial theory that suggests the market is unpredictable, and can't be beaten. (Cough-cough-B.S.)

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)