Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
investment performance
cumulative-return chart
trailing-return table
Return-to-Present curve
historical comparison
From Discrete Trailing Returns to a Continuous Graphical Profile: Return-to-Present Curves
🤖 AI Summary
本文提出了一种名为Return-to-Present (RTP)曲线的方法，解决了传统投资回报展示方式中固定起点或离散时间点的局限性，通过保持评估日期不变而让历史购买日期连续变化，从而提供了一个更全面的投资表现视图。
📝 Abstract
Investment performance is commonly presented either as a conventional cumulative-return chart, which fixes a historical starting date and traces performance forward, or as a trailing-return table, which fixes the current endpoint but reports only a small set of prespecified horizons. These two displays have complementary limitations: fixed-start comparisons are conditional on the selected origin, whereas trailing returns provide only discrete snapshots of the underlying fixed-endpoint return function. We present the Return-to-Present (RTP) curve as a continuous fixed-endpoint representation that brings these perspectives together by holding the evaluation date fixed while allowing the hypothetical historical purchase date to vary over the available history. Familiar 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, 1-year, and longer trailing returns therefore become selected points on a continuous curve. When multiple investments are overlaid, RTP directly displays entry-date sensitivity, persistent relative advantage, crossings, and the timing and magnitude of separation without requiring selection of a single historical origin. The same endpoint-based construction naturally accommodates investments with unequal inception dates, recurring purchases, and retrospective portfolio rotation decisions in which sale and replacement-purchase dates may differ. We illustrate these uses with real investment data and discuss its relationship to momentum. RTP does not define a new return measure; its contribution is a simple graphical organization of familiar realized returns for historical comparison and decision support rather than prediction or statistical inference.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Return-to-Present (RTP) curve
continuous fixed-endpoint representation
entry-date sensitivity
historical comparison
investment performance visualization
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