---
title: "Compare a strategy with its benchmark in Performance Metrics"
description: "Read Performance Metrics against the benchmark: the Strategy and Benchmark columns of the Summary table, and By year's Value and Delta, year by year."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/compare-a-strategy-with-its-benchmark-in-performance-metrics"
last_updated: "2026-10-11"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/compare-a-strategy-with-its-benchmark-in-performance-metrics.md"
---

# Compare a strategy with its benchmark in Performance Metrics

**Performance Metrics** sets every figure of your [strategy](/glossary/strategy) beside the same figure for its [benchmark](/glossary/benchmark), over the same dates: in **Summary** for the whole period and in **By year** for each calendar year.

## Steps

1. **Open Performance Metrics.** Open the strategy, choose **Analysis**, then **Performance Metrics**. The tables fill in once the strategy has a completed [backtest](/glossary/backtest); until then the page reads "No results yet".
2. **Read Summary across.** Each row gives the metric, its **Strategy** value and its **Benchmark** value, grouped under **Performance**, **Drawdown**, **Volatility and risk**, **Worst days · 95%**, **Monthly performance** and **Averages**. What each row means is [What every number in Performance Metrics means](/docs/analysis/what-every-number-in-performance-metrics-means).
3. **Let the colour lead.** Only the **Strategy** value is coloured: returns and drawdowns read green when positive and red when negative, **Return-to-drawdown ratio** and **Sharpe** are coloured against a neutral band, and the other rows stay plain. The **Benchmark** value is always muted, because it is context rather than your result.
4. **Read By year.** One row per calendar year, newest first, each cell stacking your value over a smaller second line — see [How does the By year table work?](#how-does-the-by-year-table-work)
5. **Choose what the second line shows.** In the card's header, **Benchmark** switches between **Value**, the benchmark's own figure, and **Delta**, the gap between the two with an arrow.
6. **Page through the years.** The footer shows 25 years at a time; under **Rows** choose 50, 100 or **All**.

**Done.** For the whole period and for each year, you can tell which part of a figure was the market and which part was the strategy's own doing.

## How does the By year table work?

**By year** repeats six metrics per calendar year: the columns are **Year**, **Annual return (%)**, **Max drawdown**, **Volatility**, **Return-to-drawdown ratio**, **Sharpe** and **Positive months (%)**. Each cell shows your strategy's value on top and a second line below it, which the **Benchmark** toggle in the card's header decides:

- **Value**, where the table opens, shows the benchmark's own figure for that year, prefixed with "vs", and the card's caption reads "Each cell: your strategy, with the benchmark value below."
- **Delta** shows the gap between the two, prefixed by an arrow: up and green when your strategy did better on that metric, down and red when it did worse. Your own value goes uncoloured, so the arrow is the only colour, and the caption reads "Each cell: your strategy, with the gap vs the benchmark below."

Two things about **Delta** are easy to misread. The gap between two percentages is a difference in percentage points, so it is labelled **pp** rather than % — see [excess return](/glossary/excess-return); a ratio's gap carries no unit. And the arrow means "better", not "bigger": for **Volatility** the lower number is the better one, and for **Max drawdown** the shallower fall. The choice is a view preference: it is not saved to the page's address.

## What does a By year cell look like in practice?

In the **Annual return (%)** column, the row for 2022 shows **−14.2%** on top and, in **Value** mode, "vs −18.0%" below it: the strategy lost 14.2% that year while its benchmark lost 18.0%.

Switch the header toggle to **Delta** and the same cell shows **−14.2%** with **↑ 3.8pp** beneath it. The arrow points up and reads green because losing less than the benchmark is the better outcome on this metric, and the gap is 3.8 percentage points, not 3.8%. One column right, under **Volatility**, the strategy shows 11.0% against the benchmark's 15.5%: the delta is **↑ 4.5pp**, again up and green, because on [volatility](/glossary/volatility) the smaller number is the better one.

## Where else do these metrics appear?

- A KPI strip above the tables leads with four headline figures — **Sharpe ratio**, **Volatility**, **Longest drawdown** and **CAGR vs benchmark**.
- Every strategy row in your strategies list carries a compact version: **CAGR**, **Volatility**, **Sharpe** and **Max drawdown** as columns, beside the **MTD**, **1M**, **YTD** and **1Y** return windows. All are shown by default and can be hidden from the **Columns** chooser ([return windows](/glossary/return-windows)).
- **Monthly Returns** repeats the per-year figures in its compact **Total**, **DD** and **NP/DD** columns ([months matrix](/glossary/months-matrix)).
- On a [Combined](/glossary/combined), the **Sub-strategies** tab repeats several of these figures for each of its strategies, as cards of charts rather than a table, and adds [Sortino](/glossary/sortino-ratio), [tracking error](/glossary/tracking-error) and [information ratio](/glossary/information-ratio) — the last two measured against the Combined, not the benchmark ([component analytics](/glossary/strategy-analytics)).

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)