Glossary
Active Share:
Active Share is a measure of the differentiation of the holdings of a portfolio from the holdings of its appropriate passive benchmark index.
Alpha:
The alpha of a mutual fund describes the difference between a fund’s actual return over a period of time and its expected return, given the fund’s level of risk. In this case, the risk profile of the fund is measured by the fund’s beta.
Basis Point:
Is a value equaling one one-hundredth of a percent (1/100 of 1%).
Beta:
A measure of the volatility of the fund’s total returns relative to the general market as represented by a corresponding benchmark index of the fund. A beta of more than 1.00 indicates volatility greater than the market, and a beta of less than 1.00 indicates volatility less than the market.
Book Value:
The value of a security on the day of purchase or the acquisition value.
Bottom Line:
Refers to a company’s net earnings, net income or earnings per share (EPS), which is usually the last line at the bottom of the page on a company’s income statement.
Capital Expenditure (CapEx):
are funds used by a company to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets such as property, buildings, an industrial plant, technology, or equipment.
Carbon Risk Rating (Sustainalytics):
The Carbon Risk Rating assesses the degree to which company value is at risk driven by the transition to a low-carbon economy. Specifically, the Carbon Risk Rating measures a company’s unmanaged exposure to carbon risk. Sustainalytics offers a Carbon Risk Rating for over 4,000 companies. The rating sorts the underlying scores into five risk categories: negligible, low, medium, high, and severe. The scores are absolute, meaning that one point of risk is the same across industries and across companies.
Cash Flow:
The sum of the after-tax profit of a business plus depreciation and other non-cash charges.
CBOE Volatility Index:
is a key measure of market expectations of near-term volatility conveyed by S&P 500 stock index option prices.
Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR):
The year-over-year growth rate of an investment over a specified period of time. The compound annual growth rate is calculated by taking the nth root of the total percentage growth rate, where n is the number of years in the period being considered.
Correlation:
A statistical technique that can show whether and how strongly pairs of variables are related.
Debt to Capital:
A measurement of a company’s financial leverage, calculated as the company’s debt divided by its total capital.
Debt to EBITDA:
Total debt less transition bonds and debt-related restricted cash divided by EBITDA. Debt to EBITDA is a measure used by management to assess credit quality.
Discounted Cash Flow (DCF):
Analysis uses future free cash flow projections and discounts them (most often using the weighted average cost of capital) to arrive at a present value, which is used to valuate the potential for investment.
Dividend Yield:
Represents the trailing 12-month dividend yield aggregating all income distributions per share over the past year, divided by the period ending fund or stock share price. It does not reflect capital gains distributions.
Earnings Growth:
The annual rate of growth of earnings typically measured as Earnings Per Share Growth.
Earnings Per Share (EPS):
The net income of a company divided by the total number of shares it has outstanding.
EBITDA:
Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization
EBITDA to Interest:
EBITDA divided by cash interest expense is a measure used to assess credit quality.
Emissions/Revenue (USD):
Carbon intensity expressed as the issuer’s total carbon emissions per million USD of revenue as a proxy of the carbon efficiency per unit of output.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG):
Criteria are a set of non financial factors that can be used to evaluate an investment’s potential risk and opportunity.
Free Cash Flow:
Is equal to the cash from operations of a company less capital expenditures.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP):
An inflation-adjusted measure that reflects the value of all goods and services produced by an economy or country in a given year, expressed in base-year prices.
Gross of Fees:
Is the total rate of return on an investment before the eduction of any fees or expenses.
Initial Public Offering (IPO):
The first sale of stock by a private company to the public.
Margin of Safety:
A principle of investing in which an investor only purchases securities when their market price is significantly below their intrinsic value.
Market Capitalization:
The total value of the issued shares of a publicly traded company; it is equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding.
Moody’s Credit Ratings (Source: Moody’s):
The purpose of Moody’s ratings is to provide investors with a simple system of gradation by which relative creditworthiness of securities may be noted. Gradations of creditworthiness are indicated by rating symbols, with each symbol representing a group in which the credit characteristics are broadly the same. The highest rating assigned by Moody’s is AAA and the lowest is C.
MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI):
A market capitalization weighted index designed to provide a broad measure of equity-market performance throughout the world. It is maintained by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) and is comprised of stocks from 23 Developed Markets (DM) and 24 Emerging Markets (EM) countries.
Price-to-Book (P/B) Ratio:
The price-to-book ratio of a fund is the weighted average of the price-to-book ratios of all the stocks in a fund’s portfolio.
Price-to-Cash Flow (P/CF) Ratio:
A stock valuation measure calculated by dividing a firm’s cash flow per share into the current stock price. Financial analysts often prefer to value stocks using cash flow rather than earnings because the latter is more easily manipulated.
Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio:
Is a common tool for comparing the prices of different common stocks and is calculated by dividing the earnings per share into the current market price of a stock.
Price-to-Earnings (P/E) 10 Ratio:
A valuation measure, generally applied to broad equity indices, that uses real per-share earnings over a 10-year period. The P/E 10 ratio uses smoothed real earnings to eliminate the fluctuations in net income caused by variations in project margins over a typical business cycle. The P/E 10 ratio is also known as the Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings (CAPE) ratio or the Shiller P/E ratio.
Price-to-Value Ratio:
Is the current stock price divided by our estimate of full value.
Quantitative Easing (QE):
A government monetary policy occasionally used to increase the money supply by buying government securities or other securities from the market. Quantitative easing increases the money supply by flooding financial institutions with capital, in an effort to promote increased lending and liquidity.
Return on Equity (ROE):
Is equal to a company’s after-tax earnings (excluding non-recurring items) divided by its average stockholder equity for the year.
Return on Invested Capital (ROIC):
A calculation used to assess a company’s efficiency atallocating the capital under its control to profitable investments. Return on invested capital gives a sense of how well a company is using its money to generate returns.
Russell 1000 Growth Index:
Measures the performance of those Russell 1000 Index companies with higher price-to-book ratios and higher forecasted growth values. The Index is unmanaged, and one cannot invest directly in the Index.
Russell 2000 Index:
The most commonly used benchmark for measuring the performance of small-cap stocks.
Russell 2500 Index:
The Russell 2500 is a market cap weighted index that includes the smallest 2,500 companies covered in the Russell 3000 universe of United States-based listed equities.
Russell 3000 Value Index:
Measures the performance of those Russell 3000 Index companies with lower price-to-book ratios and lower forecasted growth values. The Index is unmanaged, and one cannot invest directly in the Index.
Russell Midcap Index:
The Russell Midcap Index is an unmanaged index, which measures the performance of the 800 smallest companies in the Russell 1000 Index.
Russell Midcap Value Index:
The Russell Midcap Value Index measures the performance of the mid-cap value segment of the U.S. equity universe. It includes Russell Midcap Index companies with lower price-to book ratios and lower forecasted growth values. It is market capitalization weighted.
S&P 500 Index:
Is a market value weighted index consisting of 500 stocks chosen for market size, liquidity and industry group representation. The Index is unmanaged, and one cannot invest directly in the Index.
S&P Earnings and Dividend Rankings:
The Standard & Poor’s Earnings and Dividend Rankings (also known as “quality rankings”) score the financial quality of several thousand US stocks from A+ through D with data going back to 1956. The company rankings are based on the most recent 10 years (40 quarters) of earnings and dividend data. The better the growth and stability of earnings and dividends, the higher the ranking.
S&P 500 Growth Index:
Measures growth stocks using three factors: sales growth, the ratio of earnings change to price, and momentum. S&P Style Indices divide the complete market capitalization of each parent index into growth and value segments. Constituents are drawn from the S&P 500®.
SEC Yield:
Is a standardized yield computed by dividing the net investment income per share earned during the 30-day period prior to quarter end.
Scope 1 Direct Emissions (tCO₂e):
This factor provides the issuer’s Scope 1 Direct Emissions (tCO₂e), which includes owned and controlled sources. The direct energy emissions data represents the final, ISS ESG reviewed and approved value based on the ISS ESG methodology, which selects the most accurate value from available sources.
Scope 2 Indirect Emissions (tCO₂e):
This factor provides the issuer’s Scope 2 Indirect Emissions (tCO₂e), which includes indirect emissions from purchased energy. The indirect energy emissions data represents the final, ISS ESG reviewed and approved value based on the ISS ESG methodology, which selects the most accurate value from available sources.
Sortino Ratio:
A variation of the Sharpe ratio, differentiates harmful volatility from volatility in general by using a value for downside deviation.
Standard & Poor’s Credit Ratings (Source: Standard & Poor’s):
Credit ratings are forward-looking opinions about credit risk. Standard & Poor’s credit ratings express the agency’s opinion about the ability and willingness of an issuer, such as a corporation or state or city government, to meet its financial obligations in full and on time. The highest rating assigned by Standard & Poor’s is AAA and the lowest is D.
Standard Deviation (Std Dev):
This statistical measurement of dispersion about an average, depicts how widely a mutual fund’s returns varied over a certain period of time. Investors use the standard deviation of historical performance to try to predict the range of returns that are most likely for a given fund. When a fund has a high standard deviation, the predicted range is wide, implying greater volatility.
10-Year U.S. Treasury Yield:
The return on investment, expressed as a percentage, on the U.S. government’s debt obligations. The higher the yields on 10-, 20-, and 30-year Treasuries, the better the economic outlook.
tCO₂e:
Metric tons (1000 kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
Top Line:
Is a reference to the gross sales or revenues of a company, which is usually the first line at the top of the page on a company’s income statement.
Turnover Ratio:
Of a mutual fund is a measurement that expresses the percentage of a particular fund’s holdings that have been replaced (turned over) during the previous year.
Upside/Downside Capture Ratios:
A measure of how well a manager was able to replicate or improve on phases of positive benchmark returns, and how badly the manager was affected by phases of negative benchmark returns.