Essentia Insight helps asset owners and allocators assess, compare and select portfolio managers based on investment decision-making skill.
For over a decade, our Insight service has helped leading active equity managers and allocators of capital look beyond historical returns — and the influence of luck — to identify and quantify portfolio manager investment skill.
At the core of Essentia Insight is our groundbreaking manager assessment tool, the Behavioral Alpha® Benchmark (EBAB), which considers the value added or destroyed by individual investment decisions. Unlike past performance, this peer-reviewed measure of decision-making skill is resistant to the random effects of luck — and it’s even linked to future relative portfolio returns.
With EBAB’s skill lens, investors gain insight into whether a manager’s performance is due to luck or decision-making skill — and whether they’re more or less likely than other managers to outperform. We’re excited to offer Essentia Insight — and its underlying EBAB assessment — to both portfolio managers and allocators in three distinct tiers: Basic, Pro and Advantage.
The Behavioral Alpha Benchmark compares equity managers based on decision-making skill. The dotted line represents what would be achieved by chance (unskilled decision-making). Portfolios to the right of the line have added value through their decision-making.
Essentia’s skill-based Behavioral Alpha® Benchmark assessment is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Investing. Read more
Who Uses Essentia Insight
Active Equity/ETF Portfolio Managers &
Research Analysts
- Assess and promote your decision-making skill compared to peers
- Articulate your investment process and objectively demonstrate your skill to end investors, regardless of short-term performance
- Continuously improve your investment decisions with a data-driven feedback loop, with optional nudges and Insight Sessions
Chief Investment Officers &
Investment Oversight Teams
- Add a decision attribution lens to your performance analysis process
- Detect and address changes in manager behavior before they have a lasting impact on the portfolio
- Get better visibility into where each member of your investment team adds value and how you can unlock more
Asset Allocators &
Fund Buyers
- Incorporate a quantifiable measure of investment skill into your manager selection and review processes
- Understand how — not just where — each manager generates alpha
- Have more valuable conversations with managers by speaking their language
For a firsthand perspective on how allocators of capital use Essentia Insight, watch our Behavioral Alpha webinar with Harbor Capital Advisors President and CIO Kristof Gleich.
Kristof shares how behavioral and decision analytics help with manager selection and monitoring — and how they complement traditional performance metrics.
Download an overview of Insight for Allocators: