iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund (EWM)

TotalReturn:

'Total return, when measuring performance, is the actual rate of return of an investment or a pool of investments over a given evaluation period. Total return includes interest, capital gains, dividends and distributions realized over a given period of time. Total return accounts for two categories of return: income including interest paid by fixed-income investments, distributions or dividends and capital appreciation, representing the change in the market price of an asset.'

• Compared with the benchmark SPY (78.4%) in the period of the last 5 years, the total return, or increase in value of -8.5% of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund is lower, thus worse.
• Compared with SPY (44.1%) in the period of the last 3 years, the total return, or increase in value of -5.6% is lower, thus worse.

CAGR:

'Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is a business and investing specific term for the geometric progression ratio that provides a constant rate of return over the time period. CAGR is not an accounting term, but it is often used to describe some element of the business, for example revenue, units delivered, registered users, etc. CAGR dampens the effect of volatility of periodic returns that can render arithmetic means irrelevant. It is particularly useful to compare growth rates from various data sets of common domain such as revenue growth of companies in the same industry.'

• Compared with the benchmark SPY (12.3%) in the period of the last 5 years, the annual performance (CAGR) of -1.8% of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund is lower, thus worse.
• Compared with SPY (12.9%) in the period of the last 3 years, the annual return (CAGR) of -1.9% is smaller, thus worse.

Volatility:

'Volatility is a rate at which the price of a security increases or decreases for a given set of returns. Volatility is measured by calculating the standard deviation of the annualized returns over a given period of time. It shows the range to which the price of a security may increase or decrease. Volatility measures the risk of a security. It is used in option pricing formula to gauge the fluctuations in the returns of the underlying assets. Volatility indicates the pricing behavior of the security and helps estimate the fluctuations that may happen in a short period of time.'

• Looking at the 30 days standard deviation of 18% in the last 5 years of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund, we see it is relatively lower, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (19.9%)
• During the last 3 years, the volatility is 20.3%, which is lower, thus better than the value of 23.1% from the benchmark.

DownVol:

'Downside risk is the financial risk associated with losses. That is, it is the risk of the actual return being below the expected return, or the uncertainty about the magnitude of that difference. Risk measures typically quantify the downside risk, whereas the standard deviation (an example of a deviation risk measure) measures both the upside and downside risk. Specifically, downside risk in our definition is the semi-deviation, that is the standard deviation of all negative returns.'

• Compared with the benchmark SPY (14.6%) in the period of the last 5 years, the downside risk of 13.5% of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund is lower, thus better.
• Compared with SPY (16.9%) in the period of the last 3 years, the downside deviation of 15.3% is smaller, thus better.

Sharpe:

'The Sharpe ratio (also known as the Sharpe index, the Sharpe measure, and the reward-to-variability ratio) is a way to examine the performance of an investment by adjusting for its risk. The ratio measures the excess return (or risk premium) per unit of deviation in an investment asset or a trading strategy, typically referred to as risk, named after William F. Sharpe.'

• Compared with the benchmark SPY (0.49) in the period of the last 5 years, the risk / return profile (Sharpe) of -0.24 of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund is lower, thus worse.
• Compared with SPY (0.45) in the period of the last 3 years, the Sharpe Ratio of -0.22 is smaller, thus worse.

Sortino:

'The Sortino ratio measures the risk-adjusted return of an investment asset, portfolio, or strategy. It is a modification of the Sharpe ratio but penalizes only those returns falling below a user-specified target or required rate of return, while the Sharpe ratio penalizes both upside and downside volatility equally. Though both ratios measure an investment's risk-adjusted return, they do so in significantly different ways that will frequently lead to differing conclusions as to the true nature of the investment's return-generating efficiency. The Sortino ratio is used as a way to compare the risk-adjusted performance of programs with differing risk and return profiles. In general, risk-adjusted returns seek to normalize the risk across programs and then see which has the higher return unit per risk.'

• Looking at the excess return divided by the downside deviation of -0.31 in the last 5 years of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund, we see it is relatively smaller, thus worse in comparison to the benchmark SPY (0.67)
• During the last 3 years, the downside risk / excess return profile is -0.29, which is lower, thus worse than the value of 0.62 from the benchmark.

Ulcer:

'The Ulcer Index is a technical indicator that measures downside risk, in terms of both the depth and duration of price declines. The index increases in value as the price moves farther away from a recent high and falls as the price rises to new highs. The indicator is usually calculated over a 14-day period, with the Ulcer Index showing the percentage drawdown a trader can expect from the high over that period. The greater the value of the Ulcer Index, the longer it takes for a stock to get back to the former high.'

• Looking at the Downside risk index of 17 in the last 5 years of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund, we see it is relatively greater, thus worse in comparison to the benchmark SPY (6.16 )
• Looking at Downside risk index in of 11 in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively larger, thus worse in comparison to SPY (6.87 ).

MaxDD:

'Maximum drawdown is defined as the peak-to-trough decline of an investment during a specific period. It is usually quoted as a percentage of the peak value. The maximum drawdown can be calculated based on absolute returns, in order to identify strategies that suffer less during market downturns, such as low-volatility strategies. However, the maximum drawdown can also be calculated based on returns relative to a benchmark index, for identifying strategies that show steady outperformance over time.'

• The maximum DrawDown over 5 years of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund is -43.8 days, which is lower, thus worse compared to the benchmark SPY (-33.7 days) in the same period.
• During the last 3 years, the maximum DrawDown is -35.6 days, which is lower, thus worse than the value of -33.7 days from the benchmark.

MaxDuration:

'The Maximum Drawdown Duration is an extension of the Maximum Drawdown. However, this metric does not explain the drawdown in dollars or percentages, rather in days, weeks, or months. It is the length of time the account was in the Max Drawdown. A Max Drawdown measures a retrenchment from when an equity curve reaches a new high. It’s the maximum an account lost during that retrenchment. This method is applied because a valley can’t be measured until a new high occurs. Once the new high is reached, the percentage change from the old high to the bottom of the largest trough is recorded.'

• The maximum time in days below previous high water mark over 5 years of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund is 1036 days, which is higher, thus worse compared to the benchmark SPY (139 days) in the same period.
• During the last 3 years, the maximum days below previous high is 366 days, which is higher, thus worse than the value of 119 days from the benchmark.

AveDuration:

'The Drawdown Duration is the length of any peak to peak period, or the time between new equity highs. The Avg Drawdown Duration is the average amount of time an investment has seen between peaks (equity highs), or in other terms the average of time under water of all drawdowns. So in contrast to the Maximum duration it does not measure only one drawdown event but calculates the average of all.'

• Looking at the average days under water of 443 days in the last 5 years of iShares MSCI Malaysia Index Fund, we see it is relatively greater, thus worse in comparison to the benchmark SPY (35 days)
• Looking at average days under water in of 178 days in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively greater, thus worse in comparison to SPY (27 days).