On the Consistent Use of VaR in Portfolio Performance Evaluation : A Cautionary Note

The portfolio performance measures based on the Value-at-Risk (VaR) concept have gained widespread popularity and are often used in empirical studies. Unfortunately, we have noticed that in majority of empirical studies a VaR-based performance measure is used inconsistently. The goal of this paper is, therefore, to emphasize how to consistently use VaR in portfolio performance evaluation. We also elaborate on a simple framework that allows to derive a general formula for a portfolio performance measure which is not limited to the use of VaR-based reward and risk measures, but is valid for all reward and risk measures that satisfy a few plausible properties