TRENDXPLORER

In our VAA-paper we introduced a new metric for assessing a portfolio's equity line in terms of the reward to risk relationship: return adjusted for drawdown (RAD). We did choose RAD above the usual risk measures like the Sharpe and the MAR ratios (Sharpe: return divided by volatility, MAR: return divided by maximum drawdown), because most retail investors commonly identify true risk with maximum drawdown over volatility. Since RAD is an adjusted return, its interpretation is similar to any return (a simple percentage). For this reason we prefer RAD over MAR, which as such is just a numeric value with little context.