Attribution Analysis

Think of attribution analysis as the grading scale that a portfolio manager is graded on. An asset management company might want to know how well their individual portfolio managers are doing their job.

The asset management company will examine attributes like what the portfolio manager’s overall investment strategy is, which individual securities she purchased and how they performed, and how the portfolio performed against the overall market trends. The idea is to determine if these attributes compare favorably (or not) against benchmarks determined by the market’s performance.