The three rules of reading a "systematic" claim
A recipe is a recipe because you can cook it. A process is a process because you can reproduce it.
The bar is not whether the brochure uses the word. The bar is whether you can sit down with the methodology page and recreate the basket from public data. If you cannot, the discretion is the strategy and the word is the marketing.
Open universe count
16 strategies methodology page each
Execution cost
0.2 pct per leg flat. measurable.
Backtest window
5Y rolling dates published
01
If you cannot reproduce the basket from public data, it is not a process. The universe has to be a named index, not an adjective. The entry rule has to be a screen you can apply on the same close, not a conviction conference call. Two people reading the same methodology should end up holding the same 50 names. If they cannot, the gap is discretion and the discretion is the strategy.
02
Weight bounds without a weight rule are not declared concentration. "Up to 9 pct per name" is a maximum not a method. Equal weight is a method. Inverse volatility is a method. Cap weighted is a method. A range with no method is the manager's call dressed up as a rule. The single line that turns a basket into a portfolio is the weight method. Read it before the CAGR.
03
Cadence is a cost line not a vibe. Quarterly is 4 rebalances a year. Two weekly is 26. Monthly is 12. "As warranted" is none of these and pretends to be all of them. Same names same screen same weight at 4 firings versus 26 firings is two different products with two different cost lines and two different drift profiles. Write the cadence in days or the cost line is unknowable.
The line
The brochure tells you what they want to do. The methodology page tells you what they will do, in the order they will do it, on the universe they will do it to. One is a poem about investing. The other is the part you can audit on a Wednesday evening with no phone call to the wealth manager.
Read the rule before the return. The methodology page is the contract.
rupeecase.com / strategies / methodology