Valuation Dispersion Analysis

The chart is used to provide insight into whether a particular factor in a portfolio is crowded and could potentially an extra dimension of risk.  The red line shows the dispersion between the average price to book ratio between the portion of a portfolio most exposed (top decile) to a particular factor and the portion of a portfolio least exposed (bottom decile) to the same factor.  A higher dispersion indicates that the valuation of securities with high exposure to the factor may not reflect the securities’ underlying fundamentals and may be a warning sign that the factor is crowded.  The blue line displays the cumulative performance of the portion of the portfolio with high exposure to the factor.

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