desk's performance

Question

I need your point of view in evaluating the monthly performance of a desk.

I have the daily

• credit risk capital requirement (A);
• the net banking income or GNP (B).

What is the best measure of the performance:

1. (B) at the end of the month / (A) at the end of the month
2. sum( (B) daily /(A) daily)
3. sum( (B) daily / average((A) daily))
4. else?

Answer 1

Practically, the best metric is the one your boss wants you to use.

Alternately, you can think of the return of the desk like a leveraged security, as described here. This would suggest that the daily performance would be calculated as the profit divided by the basis. If you want to express the return in terms of the capital requirement, then that's one option but you have the flexibility to use others. Once you have the returns, link them together as you normally would to obtain the monthly performance.