Style Analysis

The general idea of Style Analysis is to attempt to explain, or understand, the return stream of a given fund in terms of a set of asset classes (or style factors). Specifically, for a set of n asset classes, to try and find a corresponding set of n fixed weights (or percentages). These weights are then applied to the returns of their respective asset classes, with the hope that their sum closely approximates the returns of the given fund, for each data-period in succession and over the range of data periods as a whole. At the same time, it is desired that the composition determined by the analysis reflect the actual style of the target fund.