Talk:Risk parity

I redid this article from scratch

The old one was really a stub.AaCBrown (talk) 00:58, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Concerns

I have issues with this article. We want to avoid WP:HOWTO and any appearance that we are giving investment advice. I'm uncomfortable with the lead being so specific about percentage gains or losses and the disclaimers and wishy washy wording violates WP:WEASEL. I think this lead and article needs some significant revision.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 23:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Content removed due to Original Research

The content below was removed because it is off topic, speculative and violates WP:OR in my opinion even though the content was created with good intentions. The relationship between the various events it highlights are not reflected in the sources as being related. In fact many of the sources do not seem mention Risk Parity. Instead I have created new content to replace it that accurately reflects sources that deal directly with Risk Parity and its history. I hope it will be a satisfactory replacement. If anyone disagrees we can discuss it and replace any content that is deemed to be reliably sourced back in to the article. Cheers!

• The problem of optimal portfolio construction goes back to Harry Markowitz in 1952. Full Markowitz optimization suffers from two problems: the difficulty of estimating expected future returns and the tendency of the method to suggest overly concentrated portfolios. Markowitz’s ideas inspired the Capital Asset Pricing Model, which argued the optimal portfolio was to hold all assets in the proportion they exist in the market. This is particularly convenient for portfolio management, because it automatically rebalances as asset prices change, managers only have to trade in response to market events such as mergers or IPOs. However it is difficult to define market weight outside of equity markets.

• Many people have attacked these problems in a field that came to be called “robust portfolio optimization” (robust in the sense of not being overly sensitive to the input parameters). Some popular approaches are diversity weighted indexing, fundamental indexing, minimum variance, maximum entropy and 1/N. Several of these methods can be recast as Bayesian shrinkage. Most investors continue to use simpler ad hoc alternatives, and there is evidence that these perform as well or better.

• Risk Parity grew out of this tradition, initially in work by Eugene Fama, David Booth and Clifford Asness in the early 1990s.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

References

More Original Research?

I am considering removing additional content from the article. The content below contains a graphic produced by an editor and placed in the article during its early stages. I'm sure his/her actions were a good faith attempt to improve the article but the self made graphic then became a reason to add content to explain the graphic. This is also OK except that the sources used to explain the graphic do not mention Risk Parity as far as I can see. In addition, none of the articles and analysis of Risk Parity that I have read mention CAPM or discuss the Risk Parity strategy in terms of CAPM so I wonder if it is a comparion or analysis that even needs to be in the article? At present, the graphic creates a situation where the tail is wagging the dog and it appears to be Original Research WP:OR. Any thoughts from other editors?

Illustration of CAPM argument for Risk Parity

• [One application of the Risk Parity principle is illustrated here in terms of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. In the diagram on the right, the blue region represents the feasible set, the combinations of risk and return that are attainable using unlevered portfolios of risky assets. The red dot is the portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds. The yellow dot is the Risk Parity portfolio. The black line shows the combinations of risk and return theoretically possible by combining the Risk Parity portfolio with cash (below and to the left of the yellow dot) or levering up the Risk Parity portfolio (above and to the right of the yellow dot). According to the illustration, levering the Risk Parity portfolio may create a portfolio with less risk and more expected return than the 60% stock / 40% bond portfolio.[4] According to the standard form of the Capital Asset Pricing Model, the market portfolio is the tangency portfolio, the best portfolio of risky assets to hold. [5], Portfolio Construction & Risk Budgeting, Riskbooks, Third Edition.]Risk Parity argues this is not the case because institutional and retail investors do not hold enough commodities or real assets. Moreover only stocks are generally available in levered form because common stock is a highly-levered investment in the underlying business that often contains debt.[6] [7] The market portfolio is not the tangency point, and the 60% stock / 40% bond portfolio is far from it. [8]-- — Keithbob • Talk • 11:46, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Since there are no objections, I have removed the content cited above based on WP:OR. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 17:30, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Risk parity/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: SCB '92 (talk • contribs • count) 12:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

---

Okay looking article

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   I think it should be written "1950s" not "1950's", the same with other decades; there should be a space after a citation is used ("and then in Europe.[16][22]USA investors"), and a space after a year in brackets is used: "Clifton Group(2011)"; and why are commas like this “ and not like this "? "The Financial crisis of 2007-2010" should possibly be changed to "Late-2000s financial crisis", or have it linked to that but reading the same, otherwise why is the "F" capitalized in "Financial"?

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   no problems here

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   no problems here

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   no problems here

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   no problems here

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   no problems here

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   I'm going to put this on hold for now, until the issues are cleared it's a pass

Original Author replies

I wrote an original article from a stub. I think the subsequent revisions are generally misguided as they refer to a commercial product marketed by Bridgewater (the All Weather Fund) and rely entirely on research put out by that company and some fund consultants. I believe the article should concentrate on the academic idea, which is older than the Bridgewater fund and is broader. I don't believe risk parity can be explained outside a CAPM framework. I understand the objection to using hypothetical return distributions to illustrate the claims, although I did put in disclaimers. I think the original article can be rewritten to avoid them. But the current version relies far too heavily on commercial research put out to sell a product and does not do justice to the range of the risk parity ideas.

If no one objects, I'd like to remove all commercial research from this article, and replace some of my original academic citations. There is also quite a bit of new academic work as the idea has become hot. I would like to add back the CAPM interpretation, the pre-Bridgewater history and the applications other than the All Weather Fund (question: should we mention all major risk parity funds or none? I don't think mentioning only one is a good idea).

This is a major rewrite, and I don't want to do it if it is controversial. I'll wait a while for responses. I don't intend to restore my original article, just go to something halfway in between and less commercial.

AaCBrown —Preceding undated comment added 15:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC).

Hi ACBrown, thanks for your comments and prior work on the article. I am happy to collaborate with you to improve the article. Over the past year the article has been developed quite a bit and now has been reviewed by other editors and received Good Article status which only a fraction of 1% of all the articles on Wikipedia have. That doesn't mean its perfect or that it can't be improved but doing a rewrite as you have described above seems inappropriate. It would be better to choose a specific sentence or section that you feel needs improvement and discuss together. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is based on 'reliable secondary sources' regardless of how we personally feel about those sources. On the other hand if there are additional sources that support a different view or definition of the term, those can be included. Thanks again for your interest and help. Best,-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. My overall concern is that I believe the article has morphed from a description of the academic concept of risk parity to an account of one particular commercial implementation. Academic material has been deleted, most importantly the link to the Capital Asset Pricing Model. CAPM is an academic argument for weighting investments by market capitalization, risk parity began as an alternative argument for weighting by some measure of stand-alone risk (usually standard deviation). How can you describe the reaction without mentioning what it reacted to? I think it's also important to preserve references to related ideas which come under the general heading of robust portfolio optimization. Without these links, I'm not sure risk parity deserves an article at all, it's reduced to a marketing slogan.

One possibility is to split into two articles, one on risk parity as a theoretical model and one on risk parity as a category of investment managers, just as one could have an article on the theory and history of capitalization-weighted indexing and another on the impact of the growth of index funds on the market. However that second article should not focus entirely on one company, it should either avoid naming specific funds or include a list of all major funds. And both articles should avoid references that discuss one specific fund (and especially those written by the owners of that fund), they should rely on articles that discuss risk parity in general, ideally written by disinterested parties.

I won't do any changes myself. If you agree with my view in general, I will point out the sections I feel are most problematic in the current article, and the deletions that would be most useful to restore. If you agree, or if we can come to agreement through discussion, then one or the other of us can do the painstaking work of trying to blend the changes in while keeping the article readable. If we can't agree, then I'll just leave it alone. There are plenty of articles to write or fix on Wikipedia without controversy.

I understand that Wikipedia requires reliable secondary sources rather than original research. My complaint is not that the new sources are unreliable, but that they are narrowly commercial. You wouldn't cite a Microsoft publication on the superiority of the Windows operating system to Apple software, nor write an article on operating systems that only discussed Windows. That's no reflection on Microsoft. I think the earlier charge that CAPM and robust portfolio optimatization material were original research were not complaints about the quality of the sources or lack of sources, but claims that the sources were not about risk parity. The trouble here is that in the academic literature more than five years old, "risk parity" is a very general term. The articles all use the term, but not always in the titles. For example a paper on robust portfolio optimization might mention in the text that one of the techniques studied "sometimes goes by the name of risk parity." The version of risk parity described might differ from the Bridgewater implementation, so for someone who thinks risk parity is defined by the Bridgewater version, the paper appears irrelevant.

Another possibility is to address the issue head-on and say that the largest risk parity fund goes by the name Allweather and specifically describe the Allweather idea in particular, as well as the academic idea of risk parity in general. I don't like putting so much emphasis on a commercial product, after all people who want to learn about Allweather can go to Bridgewater's website. But if the discussion is to be included, I think it's better to do it explicitly rather than slip in mentions and possibly give the impression that Allweather is the definition of risk parity.AaCBrown (talk) 18:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I would be opposed to a split or rewrite as the current article has GA status, is not overly large and is firmly grounded in reliable sources. You can create a new article on a side topic if you like or we can include a section here. If you have issues with the mention of All Weather or Bridgewater Associates we can discuss that too and make edits to the existing copy as needed. In any case, we should deal in specifics as general discussions tend to meander and not result in much progress. Best,-- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi ACB, I have broken up your post into sections so we can discuss each point, one at a time (see below).-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Risk parity as a product

• "I think it's also important to preserve references to related ideas which come under the general heading of robust portfolio optimization. Without these links, I'm not sure risk parity deserves an article at all, it's reduced to a marketing slogan"--AcBrown
  • Any topic that has received significant media coverage is notable by WP standards and deserves a presence on its encyclopedia. That is why we have articles on pop culture topics and products such as Shark Tank (TV series), Pokemon and RoboMop . Even if one was to consider risk parity as only an investment product used by hedge funds, it still doesn't negate its legitimacy as a stand alone article.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Mentioning specific funds

• "either avoid naming specific funds or include a list of all major funds"....... "The version of risk parity described might differ from the Bridgewater implementation, so for someone who thinks risk parity is defined by the Bridgewater version, the paper appears irrelevant." --AcBrown
• "Another possibility is to address the issue head-on and say that the largest risk parity fund goes by the name Allweather and specifically describe the Allweather idea in particular, as well as the academic idea of risk parity in general. I don't like putting so much emphasis on a commercial product, after all people who want to learn about Allweather can go to Bridgewater's website. But if the discussion is to be included, I think it's better to do it explicitly rather than slip in mentions and possibly give the impression that Allweather is the definition of risk parity." AcBrown
  • All Weather fund, is mentioned because it is widely cited in reliable sources as the pioneer risk parity fund. However it may have had too much emphasis so I have removed the sentences that described the All Weather fund so that now it is just a mention of the name. Next we can add the names of other funds offered by the companies already listed in the article using reliable sources as you have suggested. This should make the situation more equitable. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Primary sources

• "should avoid references that discuss one specific fund (and especially those written by the owners of that fund), they should rely on articles that discuss risk parity in general, ideally written by disinterested parties."......"My complaint is not that the new sources are unreliable, but that they are narrowly commercial. You wouldn't cite a Microsoft publication on the superiority of the Windows operating system to Apple software, nor write an article on operating systems that only discussed Windows. That's no reflection on Microsoft."--AcBrown
  • Primary sources are permitted on WP per WP:PRIMARY when they self-describe the topic and make non-controversial statements and are not the primary foundation for an article. However, for the sake of the reader, its often good to attribute the text to the primary source in the article ie. "According to XYZ, the ABC fund uses risk parity principles" If you can point out to me the primary sources in the article that concern you, I can add inline attributions so the reader is aware that the source is self describing. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Regarding Bridgewater associates, there were two sources that were articles written by execs of that company. To allay your concerns I have removed them, even though they were valid primary and secondary sources. This is not a detriment to the article as one of the sources removed was only acting as support to other secondary sources already in place. The other source supported text that was not vital to the article. If you have concerns about other sources, please let me know. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:08, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Academic History and Original Research

• "I believe the article has morphed from a description of the academic concept of risk parity to an account of one particular commercial implementation. Academic material has been deleted, most importantly the link to the Capital Asset Pricing Model. CAPM is an academic argument for weighting investments by market capitalization, risk parity began as an alternative argument for weighting by some measure of stand-alone risk (usually standard deviation). How can you describe the reaction without mentioning what it reacted to?" ....."I think the earlier charge that CAPM and robust portfolio optimatization material were original research were not complaints about the quality of the sources or lack of sources, but claims that the sources were not about risk parity. The trouble here is that in the academic literature more than five years old, "risk parity" is a very general term. The articles all use the term, but not always in the titles. For example a paper on robust portfolio optimization might mention in the text that one of the techniques studied "sometimes goes by the name of risk parity."--AcBrown
  • That's correct, the sources for CAPM were reliable as for as I can remember, but they appeared to be original research as the articles themselves did not specifically relate their concepts to the risk parity products described in this article as far as I could see. Also, sources don't have to mention Risk Parity in the title but they do need to specifically use the term risk parity in the article and state the relationship, otherwise it is original research. If we can find sources that meet that requirement then we can expand the current History section using those sources. Keeping in mind that the reliable sources need to state 'the concept of risk parity is based on CAPM or risk parity is a reaction to the XYZ concept" otherwise it is forbidden by the WP policy WP:OR.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Split or create a new article?

"One possibility is to split into two articles, one on risk parity as a theoretical model and one on risk parity as a category of investment managers, just as one could have an article on the theory and history of capitalization-weighted indexing and another on the impact of the growth of index funds on the market."---AcBrown

• • Maybe the creation of a new article called: Portfolio Risk Optimization or Robust Portfolio Optimization (or whatever is the industry's standard term), is the solution. Such an article could include all the related academic theories such as CAPM and could also make mention of risk parity whenever the sources state such a relationship. It's not like the term risk parity can't be used in other articles. This could be your parallel article. It would have a different name but would include wikilinks to Risk parity whenever the term is mentioned in the new article.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm better at writing or rewriting than editing

So I'll leave this one alone. You're correct that the material I think is important could be put in a Robust Portfolio Optimization article. The main difference of opinion, it seems to me, is you are judging the relevance of material based on frequency of use, while I tend to consider older and more academic interpretations to be more legitimate. It's an issue that comes up a lot, whenever a technical topic starts getting marketing attention. After reading your responses, I guess "risk parity" has crossed over into the popular domain, and insisting on technical purity would now get in the way of the article. I appreciate all the time you took to respond, and also to fix the article.AaCBrown (talk) 01:28, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Happy to help. Thanks for the feedback on the article. Cheers!-- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:53, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Risk parity/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

Criteria

Good Article Status - Review Criteria

Further information: WP:WIAGA

A good article is—

1. Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

2. Verifiable with no original research:

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose); and

(c) it contains no original research.

3. Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

(b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Review

1. Well-written:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (prose)	Seems fine in this department.	Pass
(b) (MoS)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

2. Verifiable with no original research:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (references)	Well done here.	Pass
(b) (citations to reliable sources)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass
(c) (original research)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

3. Broad in its coverage:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (major aspects)	This article "misses the boat" by failing to cite specific examples during the 2008 crisis. It would be good to include perhaps a whole section on the effects of the 2008 collapse with regards to risk parity.	Fail
(b) (focused)	Needs more detail and specificity.	On hold

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Notes	Result
The reviewer has no notes here.	Undetermined

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Notes	Result
The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass

6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

Criteria	Notes	Result
(a) (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales)	The reviewer has no notes here.	Pass
(b) (appropriate use with suitable captions)	This topic demands more appropriate imagery to even be considered for GA status. The one image is good, but for the topic at hand, historical data should be included.	Fail

Result

Result	Notes
Fail	This article lacked the required depth that would exemplify a GA.

Discussion

Please add any related discussion here.

• Some time will be given for corrections to be made or my view disputed. Don4of4 ^[Talk] 05:24, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Hi Don, Thanks for your interest in this article and your efforts to improve Wikipedia. As you know GA articles are not FA's and can be improved and expanded. I have no objections to an additional paragraph or section about the way risk parity was influenced by the the 2008 financial collapse as long as there are reliable sources and the new section or paragraph is given appropriate weight per the preponderance of the sources. So I'm happy to collaborate with you on this.
  • There are a couple of things however, that are a bit confusing to me and maybe you could help me understand:
    • Can you elaborate on the intended purpose of this Additional Notes list is on the article talk page? I assume that they are suggested sources for the section you'd like to add to the article but I'm not sure because I checked the three items that have URL's and #'s 3 and 6 don't mention risk parity (according to my PDF search function) and #20 is a dead URL link. Also none of the other 17 items list the words risk parity in the title and 15 of the 20 items are dated prior to 2008 and therefore would not have any info on the 2008 crisis. So I'm not really sure what that list is about.
      • The list was automatically added. I believe it provides the content for the citations users already made. Don4of4 ^[Talk] 19:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
    • In your reassessment you have Failed the article for "Images: appropriate use with suitable captions" by saying "This topic demands more appropriate imagery to even be considered for GA status. The one image is good, but for the topic at hand, historical data should be included". Are there any appropriate copyright free images available that further illustrate the major points in the article? If so I'd be happy to include them. But I don't see how you can fail the article's image requirement. Since you've said yourself that the images presently in the article are useful and used appropriately.
      • There is only one image. There is plenty of potential for graphs or other simple visual aids. The apparent lack of free images isn't an excuse when images can be created. Don4of4 ^[Talk] 19:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
    • Mostly though I don't understand why this couldn't have been addressed as a simple talk page discussion and a subsequent collaborative effort to expand and improve the article instead of a reassessment and the threat of a downgrade. The current set up is conducive for conflict rather than collaboration but maybe I'm missing something.
      • I totally agree with you, but in the end I didn't feel like this article was close enough to GA requirements to dictate that courtesy. Don4of4 ^[Talk] 19:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I look forward to working together, peace out! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Progress

Hi everyone. I come here after a note was placed at WP:GAR regarding this reassessment. I do run through these occasionally so probably would have commented here eventually. It has not had any activity for over a month now and it appears the initiator is on a Wikibreak. As to the requests above the image one is not really part of the GA criteria unless there are free ones available. The broadness criteria can be a bit tricky. It must over the main aspects of a topic, but that doesn't mean that it needs to cover them all or in great detail. I don't know enough about the topic to comment too much on this, but if you give a bit more detail on what is missing that would help. 11:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Community reassessment of Risk parity's GA status in progress

Please join the conversation here. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 23:35, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Peer review

Should we subject this article to peer review? Lbertolotti (talk) 15:31, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

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