Performance Viewer

Performance Viewer gives advisors the ability to drill down and evaluate the comprehensive data within households or reporting. Accounts can be evaluated individually or for the greater context of an entire household. Numerous parameters can be manipulated and viewed to better understand and sort out any outliers in data.  


How Does Performance Viewer Work?

When you enter Performance Viewer, start by entering a client's Household, Registration, Account, or Portfolio Group. After you apply all settings, the live performance calculation for that entity based on the current data within that entity and elsewhere in the system generates on the screen. Orion's performance engine is one of the only calculation engines in the industry that calculates performance values on demand based on the current data.


App Features Overview

Settings

On the right side of the app, use the settings bar to control how the data displays in the main view. Below is a list of the settings and what each one controls:


Start/End Date - The Start and End Dates control the standard "Period" displayed in the app after the system generates the performance return. This date range is customizable for any date range the client has data for. The lightning bolt icon next to the Start Date field auto-populates the inception date of the client.


Additional Date Ranges - Add a number of additional performance periods to the output in the app. Want to see the Period, Year-to-Date, and a Rolling 3-year period? Accomplish that with the Additional Periods options. Please note: The additional time frames selected in this option is based on the End Date setting. For example, if your Start/End Date range is 3/10/21 - 4/15/21, and you also want to see YTD, the "Period" is going to be 3/10/21 - 4/15/21, and your YTD will be 1/1/21 - 4/15/21.

Groupings - View additional levels of an entity's performance. For example, if you selected a Household for review, you can add the Registration, Account, Asset, Asset Category, Aggregate Model, and many others for additional review. This allows for a more in-depth review of performance.


Return Styles - Review not only the daily intervals but also benchmarks and their details and/or certain risk statistics.

  • Benchmark Summary - Provides the performance return for any selected based on the designated period
  • Benchmark Intervals - Provides the daily period returns for the benchmark(s) displayed
  • Statistic Summary - Displays the results of common risk metrics for the selected period. To view the Statistic Summary information, simply select the level you would like to review in the Summary section by right-clicking on the entity level, and clicking Statistic Summary. A window will display with the returns for statistics such as Beta, Drawdown, Sharpe Ratio, etc.

Account Management Override - Determine, at run time, which accounts should be included in the performance generated on the screen.


Calculation Method - Choose from Time-Weighted Return (TWR), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), or Simple. This is the core of the performance calculation used.


Fee Calculation Method - Choose from Net of Fees or Gross of Fees. This setting determines whether management fees are considered in the return calculation (Net) or not (Gross).


Cumulative Performance - Selecting "True" adds a column that shows the return from the start date through the date of each row. For example, if you run 1/1/2023 through today and add the cumulative performance column, each row in the cumulative performance would show returns for date ranges starting with 1/1-1/1, then 1/1-1/2, then 1/1-1/3, then 1/1-1/4 and so on.


Performance Options - Add to the performance calculation whether to include accrued interest, annualize the returns greater than 1 year in length, and more!

Override Options - see what you’ve set your “Default Value” settings to and where you have the option to change those settings to “Changed Value”.



For setting definitions, please review the Performance Settings and Definitions article.



 

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Summary Section

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The Summary section provides high-level data points of the entities used in the performance generation. Data points such as the beginning and ending values, inception dates, and performance returns for the selected periods are found here.

In the Summary section, select which entity you'd like to review, and the Details section in the lower half of the screen will automatically update to the daily performance details for that entity.

Details Section

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The Details section is where the magic really takes place. With the data points available on the screen, anyone is able to prove a TWR performance return! Since every day in the selected date range is visible, you have all the data points you could ask for to troubleshoot or prove a performance return in Orion. The most important columns to focus on in this section are the Value Change, Beginning Market Value, Factor, and Performance. With these columns in particular, you could easily calculate a basic TWR return for any given period once the data has been exported to an Excel file.


 

Reading the Results

To digest the sheer amount of data on the screen once the returns are loaded, it is important to know what some columns and data points contain or refer to. Below is a quick list of the important pieces of the performance puzzle and how to decipher them.


Period - Whenever you see the title of "Period" in the performance (or on reports), it is referring to the custom Start and End Date dates you entered prior to the generation of the results.


Value Change - In the Details section of the Performance Viewer results, you will always see a column titled Value Change. It is vital to understand that this column does not mean the sheer dollar value difference added or lost between dates. The data points that are used to tabulate the Value Change each day include things like price fluctuations, dividends, and interest values being paid out, etc. Things like Contributions, Distributions, or any other cash flow in or out of the account is not included in the value. Think of this as the core value of the entity, not the values represented by cash movement in or out of the entity. There is a separate Cash Flows column for those data points.


Beginning Accrued Interest - If the entity you're analyzing has fixed income as part of its makeup, you may see data plugged in this column during certain periods where interest is due. This column is intended to represent the total accrued interest value on that particular date based on the rate information stored on the product and the value of the asset during that interest period. 


Accrued Interest Change - Similar to the above-mentioned interest data point, this is the single daily change in the accrued interest amount for that entity for the given period. Typically, this is smaller in value, and you are able to find the next day's Beginning Accrued Interest Value by adding a single date's Beginning Accrued Interest Value to the Accrued Interest Change for that same day.


Factor - This value is absolutely vital to proving out a TWR period return. The factor value is used in the geometric linking of the returns, meaning each daily factor is multiplied by the next day's factor value, the next day's, and so on. The factor calculation is actually quite simple. Below is a basic formula, as well as a formula when accrued interest is included:

  • Basic
    • Factor = (Value Change / Beginning Market Value) + 1
  • w/Interest
    • Factor = {(Accrued Interest Change + Value Change) / (Beginning Accrued Interest + Beginning Market Value)} +1

Performance - The value in the performance column for each day is very straightforward as well. Orion uses a modified simple rate of return for each individual day's calculation and then links them together using the factor value represented above. The daily core calculation for TWR is as follows:

  • Basic
    • Performance = (Value Change / Beginning Market Value) x 100
  • w/Interest
    • Performance = (Accrued Interest Change + Value Change) / (Beginning Accrued Interest + Beginning Market Value) x 100