Hulbert Rating

A Hulbert rating is a performance score for investment newsletters. Created by Mark Hulbert, the system evaluates newsletters by tracking their published buy and sell recommendations and measuring how those recommendations would have performed over time on a risk-adjusted basis.

Key points

• The rating tracks hypothetical portfolios that follow each newsletter’s published advice and evaluates returns after adjusting for risk.
• Performance is summarized with metrics including volatility (standard deviation of monthly returns) and the Sharpe ratio (risk-adjusted return).
• The service publishes scoreboards showing recent and long-term performance windows (e.g., 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years).
• Newsletters are typically subscribed to anonymously to prevent tip bias; newsletters pay a flat fee to be audited and tracked.

How the Hulbert rating works

1. Hulbert Ratings maintains a hypothetical portfolio for each newsletter and records buy and sell recommendations.
2. When recommendations are vague, analysts infer the intended action to model trades consistently.
3. Returns are tracked over multiple periods and combined with measures of volatility to compute a Sharpe ratio and other risk-adjusted statistics.
4. The methodology is designed to be impartial: subscriptions are made under other names so newsletters cannot provide early or preferential information.

Scoreboards and historical tracking

Hulbert Ratings publishes performance scoreboards showing:
* Most recent 12-month results.
* Historical ratings over multiple trailing periods (3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years).
This long-term visibility helps compare newsletters across different market environments.

Newsletter Honor Roll

The Hulbert Investment Newsletter Honor Roll highlights newsletters that have delivered above-average performance in both up and down markets. For each newsletter the honor roll shows:
* Raw gains over a specified period.
* A risk number (volatility measured by standard deviation of monthly returns).
* A risk-adjusted performance number (Sharpe ratio).

Are investment newsletters worth it?

Long-term evidence summarized by Hulbert shows most newsletters—like most active managers—tend to underperform broad market indexes. Hulbert has noted that, from a purely performance standpoint, many investors would be better off holding a low-cost index fund.

That said, Hulbert has also argued that newsletters can have behavioral value. Many investors fail to stick with a passive index strategy through downturns; following a newsletter’s disciplined advice may keep some investors invested when they would otherwise make emotional, harmful trades. In short:
* Statistically, index investing often outperforms active newsletters.
* Practically, a newsletter can help some investors follow a consistent strategy and avoid panic-driven mistakes.

Takeaway

Hulbert ratings offer an impartial, long-term way to evaluate the historical performance and risk characteristics of investment newsletters. They provide useful comparative data, but historical outperformance is rare—investors should weigh statistical track records against their own ability to follow a chosen strategy consistently.