Latest news with #Sortino
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- General
- Boston Globe
Stick lending library for dogs at Fresh Pond is ‘quintessentially Cambridge,' regulars say
'It's very representative of the neighborhood. North Cambridge is the best; there's so much character,' said Liceaga, 31. 'It just fits in perfectly, and it was well-timed.' Advertisement An official from the City of Cambridge Water Department, which manages Fresh Pond, said they don't know who installed the stick library, and it was done without permission. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Kathryn, who asked that her last name not be used, threw a stick to her Plott hound mix named Maple at Little Fresh Pond Dog Beach on Saturday, Aug. 9. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff City workers initially removed the library, but quickly brought it back with a few modifications, hoping it would help solve the recurring problem of dog owners 'hopping the fence and breaking sticks off of live trees' in the protected resource area, watershed manager David Kaplan said in an email. When dogs take sticks from the library and owners replace them, park outings become easier for those who arrive without toys to throw, said John Sortino, who has been bringing Angelina, his 5-year-old golden retriever, to the pond since she was a puppy. Advertisement 'It's a great place for dogs to chase things,' Sortino said. Around 3 p.m. on a recent Friday, soaked dogs scampered out of the water and dropped soggy sticks at the feet of their owners — or proceeded to chomp the wood to pieces. Black and white mutt Rayne went for his first swim of the summer, laying down in the shallow water to chew sticks held between his front paws. 'It's been on my calendar for a while,' said owner Cat Sanderson, pulling salmon treats out of her fanny pack. If a stick found in the woods survives a session of fetch, it can be placed in the library so another dog owner doesn't have to hunt for one. That's what happened when Nicholas Kingman's wirehaired vizsla, Bailey — the 'star' of the dog beach, according to Sortino — was ready to go home. Bailey swam and retrieved again and again, dutifully dropping her stick on the ground within arm's reach. Graeme Peel let his golden doodle, Toph, off the leash to frolic in the water at Little Fresh Pond Dog Beach on Saturday, Aug. 9. In the background is the empty stick library. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff Toph, a female golden doodle, swam with two sticks at Little Fresh Pond Dog Beach on Saturday, Aug. 9. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff 'She will fetch anything, but she loves to fetch sticks,' said Kingman, explaining that vizslas were bred for bird retrieval. About an hour later, Cambridge native Hannah Varden arrived at the pond with her white and black-spotted husky mix named after singer Otis Redding. Varden, who calls Otis her 'knock-off Dalmatian,' said there aren't enough places where dogs can go off leash and swim. 'It's a great resource to cool them off in the summer when it's really hot,' said Varden, 31. Later, pitbull mixes doggy paddled amid the water lilies as their owners relaxed on a long curved bench. People said they were grateful for the park's newly renovated amenities, which include a stone ramp leading to the water and a sturdy wood and asphalt pier, perfect for jumping. Advertisement Charlie Fonda, 14, brings Burke, his family's German wirehaired pointer, to Fresh Pond every other day for long walks. His parents bring the dog on his off days. During the summer, Burke enjoys the dog beach. 'I like to bring her here because she enjoys swimming a lot,' he said. 'It's a way for her to refresh herself.' Sortino, who said he is '100 percent Italian,' named Angelina after a character in a Louis Prima song. Graeme Peel watched his golden doodle, Toph, play off-leash in the water at Little Fresh Pond Dog Beach on Saturday, Aug. 9. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff 'She's Italian. Everyone thinks I named her after Angelina Jolie,' said Sortino, adding that his dog's full name is Angelina Hannah Sophia Julia Theo Sortino. Michael Bunis and his friend Shannon Egleson arrived at the pond with a heap of sticks for Bunis's 8-month-old Portuguese water dog, Blue. None of the sticks made it back to the library at the end of their visit. 'I need a lot of sticks,' said Bunis, a lawyer. 'We start collecting about a half mile from here.' As the water's edge got more crowded with humans playing their role in fetch, more dogs shook water off their coats, sending drops flying everywhere. No one minded the mess. 'It's very communal, and that's what Fresh Pond at its best is all about,' Egleson said. Claire Thornton can be reached at
Economic Times
20-05-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Is beating the benchmark enough? What the information ratio reveals
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Q. Let's start with the basics—what exactly is the Information Ratio? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Q. How do you see the IR reshaping the way investors assess fund managers, especially in an era of passive investing? Q. How is Information Ratio different from other ratios? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Q. What's the ideal time frame to evaluate the Information Ratio? Q. I noticed that multicap and contra funds often show a higher Information Ratio compared to large-cap or mid-cap funds over 3–5 years. Why is that? Q. How should investors use Information Ratio in conjunction with other metrics like Alpha, Beta, or Sharpe Ratio when selecting funds? Information Ratio shows how efficiently a fund manager has beaten the benchmark considering the risk taken. Alpha tells you how much excess return the fund generated. Beta indicates how sensitive the fund is to market movements—i.e., how volatile it is compared to the benchmark. Sharpe Ratio assesses return per unit of total risk, compared to a risk-free asset. Sortino Ratio focuses only on downside risk. Q. How can one interpret whether an Information Ratio is good or not? Q. What are some limitations of the Information Ratio? Are there risks to over-relying on it? Q. Lastly, SEBI is pushing for greater fund disclosures and transparency. Should the Information Ratio be highlighted more prominently in fact sheets? Excerpts:The Information Ratio (IR) is a performance metric that measures a fund manager's ability to generate excess returns over a benchmark, adjusted for the volatility of those excess shows how effectively a manager delivers better risk-adjusted returns compared to the benchmark.A higher IR indicates more consistent and efficient outperformance, while a lower IR suggests the fund is underperforming relative to its me give you a comparison: Suppose two large-cap fund managers both deliver a 15% return, beating their 12% benchmark by 3%. Now, if one of them took less risk than the other to achieve this, the Information Ratio will reflect that. The fund manager with the higher Information Ratio would be the preferred choice because he delivered the same return with less ratio highlights both consistency and efficiency in return question. There are two aspects here. First, should investors choose active or passive fund management?When we analysed mutual fund performance over the past five years—across categories like large-cap, flexi-cap, multi-cap, contra, etc.—we found that 60% to 100% of active funds beat the Nifty, and around 70% beat their own benchmarks, except in the large-cap yes, if you choose the right fund, active strategies still offer superior excess returns. Passive funds can't outperform the benchmark—they just mirror within active strategies, the Information Ratio helps you evaluate the quality of excess return. It allows you to choose fund managers who are not only outperforming but doing so with less risk. That's where this metric really becomes investors use the Sharpe Ratio, which compares a fund's return to a risk-free rate like a 6.5% government bond, adjusted for the Information Ratio compares the fund's return to its own benchmark, not to a risk-free asset. That makes it more relevant for mutual funds, because we're evaluating whether the manager added value over what the benchmark would have while Sharpe is useful, the Information Ratio gives a truer picture of a fund manager's active frame is very important. Looking at short-term data can mislead you due to market noise and volatility. On the other hand, a very long-term period like 10 years might not reflect the current fund strategy or manager, as those could have ideal period is between three to five years. This allows you to evaluate consistent performance while accounting for a reasonably stable strategy and risk observation. It's because of investment large-cap funds, 80% of the money must go to the top 100 stocks, leaving little room for creativity or deviation from the benchmark. That limits the potential to generate alpha or excess in multicap, smallcap, flexicap, or contra funds, fund managers can explore beyond the benchmark and use different strategies. That freedom leads to higher alpha, and therefore, a better Information should never rely on any one ratio in right approach is to combine all these and assess a fund from multiple angles—consistency, volatility, downside protection, and benchmark-beating don't need to calculate it yourself—it's already available in the fund fact sheets. You can simply compare the Information Ratio of a fund to the category instance, in the focused fund category, ICICI Prudential Focused Fund has an Information Ratio of 0.9, while the category average is 0.07—a clear indication of superior risk-adjusted the smallcap space, Invesco India Smallcap Fund has a ratio of 0.5, compared to a 0.1 category yes, the more positive the Information Ratio, the better. It means the fund manager is taking less risk for every unit of extra It's just one part of the the right fund starts with knowing your market cap allocation, then shortlisting funds that consistently beat benchmarks, and only then applying tools like the Information can't make a decision solely based on this metric. A fund might have a good Information Ratio today but not fit your overall strategy or allocation. So, use it as a filter, not the final Fact sheets are already loaded with data, but unless key metrics like the Information Ratio are better communicated and explained, investors won't more people understand and look at the Information Ratio, they can hold their advisors accountable and make more informed, risk-conscious yes, SEBI should definitely promote awareness and ensure standardized, visible reporting of such metrics.
