medium · FRM Part 2 Risk & Investment Management

An institutional allocator uses a Sortino Ratio to evaluate a hedge fund specializing in merger arbitrage.

Why might this metric be preferred over the Sharpe Ratio for this specific strategy?

  1. Merger arbitrage has negative skew; the Sortino Ratio only penalizes downside volatility below a threshold, ignoring welcome upside moves.
  2. It is not preferred here; the Sharpe Ratio remains the only coherent measure suitable for all investment-grade mandates.
  3. The Sortino Ratio corrects for 'volatility laundering' by substituting realized peak-to-trough drawdowns for monthly standard deviation.
  4. Merger arbitrage is a market-neutral strategy, so the Sortino Ratio strips out the benchmark beta entirely from its calculation.

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