How to Enhance Portfolio Decisions With Clear Investment Reporting

While the asset management industry agrees on the importance of data, firms face challenges in managing and acting on it. In one recent survey, 42% of asset manager respondents said they faced difficulties in getting consensus from internal stakeholders.

Well-structured reports can help you clear the first hurdle to productive conversations.

Your colleagues are busy—make the most of their attention. While it seems intuitive to add more data or visualizations to explain a complicated concept, it can create confusion when viewers aren’t sure where to focus.

Impactful investment reporting walks a fine balance. It adds context without adding distractions, and includes enough data without information overload.

Here's how to create more useful internal investment reports. For more practical tactics, download the complete guide.

As in any unfamiliar landscape, reporting signposts can help readers orient themselves and find where to go next.

Signposts are phrases or images that link content together and convey a larger idea. These could be subheadings, chart or table titles, legends, and axis labels.

To introduce a chart or table, consider using a descriptive title that introduces the main insight instead of labeling what’s in the visual.

This gives readers a starting point on where to focus, rather than asking them to parse a complicated visual on their own. League tables, or rank order tables, can highlight the most important contributors based on relevant factors.

Standardize how you use design elements across the report. This could mean using the same color to represent the same asset class or placing descriptions in the same position relative to a graph.

One of the main blockers to extracting meaningful insights is data complexity, surveys show. Curated reports can unearth insights that might otherwise remain buried in the mountains of data available.

Carefully weigh what data you want to include and how relevant it is to your audience. Focus on the data points that capture trends or outliers in your analysis, keeping your reports centered on the primary narrative.

Do you want to give your audience a quick snapshot of asset allocation? Or do you want to provide a deep-dive comparison to a similar offering? What supporting data points will add credibility, clarity, and needed evidence to important sections?

Short explanations can help avoid confusion. Two pages are better than ten. Short definitions of metrics can ensure that all readers are on the same page.

Charts and tables can draw attention to the key takeaways of an investment report. They pull information out of a busy description or table to give it a place of prominence.

Instead of reading through a series of numbers to compare, contrast, and draw their own conclusions, readers can understand your message in one glance.

Visuals are a good option when they can help readers efficiently digest the main takeaway. Charts that grow too complicated can have the opposite effect and alienate the viewer.

Before publishing, ask a colleague to be a fresh pair of eyes on a chart or graph to understand the clarity of the takeaway.

Consider how best to illustrate data using charts, style boxes, and ratings.

Contrast can help clients scan for essential information. Help clients interpret data using design elements—color coding, sizing, and spacing can illuminate dense information.

Don’t sacrifice clarity for exciting layouts. With familiar metrics or benchmarks for comparison, you help readers clearly understand what they should take away from a report.

Features like conditional formatting and scorecarding can help your audience gain quick insights from data. This can draw attention to the data points with the most impact.

All copy should add value for the reader. Remove elements that don’t add to the users’ understanding, like titles, captions, or legends.

Look for opportunities to use simple ratings to convey deeper insights. In one easy-to-understand image, ratings can communicate meaningful analysis about an investment.

As strategies grow in number and complexity, many asset managers still face a bottleneck when it comes to data management and reporting.

Without enough dedicated resources, firms often must resort to fragmented processes to collect, analyze, and present investment data. That can lead to differences between teams that add delays or complications to the decision-making process.

The right investment reporting tool can help your firm stay focused on key insights and flow information smoothly between teams.

For more practical ideas, download the full Morningstar performance reporting guide.