---
title: "Combined weighting"
description: "Combined weighting is how a Combined splits capital across the strategies inside it — a layer above each strategy's own instrument weighting."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/strategies/combined-weighting"
last_updated: "2026-09-23"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/strategies/combined-weighting.md"
---

# Combined weighting

Combined weighting is how a Combined splits its capital across the strategies inside it — a layer of allocation that sits above, and is independent of, how each of those strategies weights its own instruments. The editor titles it **Combined allocation** and describes it as "How capital is split across strategies".

**Also seen as:** Combined allocation, strategy-level allocation, multi-strategy weighting

## What are the two independent weighting layers?

A Combined applies two allocation layers and never merges them into one. The Combined layer decides what share of capital each member strategy receives. Inside each member strategy, that strategy's own [allocation method](/docs/strategies/allocation-and-allocation-method) then decides how its share is spread across instruments. The layers do not interact: a member strategy keeps exactly the same internal weighting whether the Combined hands it 10% of capital or 40%, and changing a member's internal method leaves the Combined's split untouched.

## Which weighting schemes can a Combined use?

A Combined can use six of the eleven allocation methods: Equal Weights, Fixed Allocation, [Ranking-Based](/docs/strategies/ranking-based), [Inverse Volatility](/docs/strategies/inverse-volatility), [Risk Parity](/docs/strategies/risk-parity) and [MPT (Markowitz)](/docs/strategies/modern-portfolio-theory). The five that exist only inside a single strategy — [Floating](/docs/strategies/floating), [Market Cap](/docs/strategies/market-cap-weighted), [Min Correlation](/docs/strategies/min-correlation), [Mimicking](/docs/strategies/mimicking) and [Beta Neutral](/docs/strategies/beta-neutral) — are not offered at this level, because they weight instruments rather than strategies.

Two of the six produce the schemes people usually mean by "combined weighting":

- [**Fixed Allocation**](/docs/strategies/fixed-weights) — you set a weight per strategy in the Strategies table and it stays there, whatever the strategies do.
- **Ranking-Based** — the member strategies are ranked each period and paid by rank position, with fixed exceptions you nominate. This is the scheme that introduces strategy roles.

## What are strategy roles, static weight and rank weight?

When a Combined uses Ranking-Based, every member strategy takes one of two roles, set per strategy in the Strategies table:

- **static** — **Rotate** is off. The strategy is held every period at the fixed **Static weight** you gave it, regardless of how it ranks.
- **rotating** — **Rotate** is on. The strategy joins the ranking pool, and its weight comes from where it ranks that period rather than from a fixed number.

The editor summarises the split under the heading **Strategy roles** as "`{rotating}` rotating · `{staticCount}` static", with the note "Rotate and static weights are configured per strategy".

The rotating strategies share one **Rotation weights** curve — a relative weight per rank position, labelled Rank 1, Rank 2 and so on, described as "Relative weight given to each rotating rank, top to bottom — any number from 0 to 999, decimals allowed." There is exactly one slot per rotating strategy: switch Rotate on for one more strategy and a slot is added, switch it off and a slot is removed. The weight a rotating strategy actually receives — its rank weight — is whichever slot matches its rank in that period, so the slots stay put while the strategies move between them.

## Defaults in Fincanva

- The Combined's default method is [**Equal Weights**](/docs/strategies/equal-weights): capital split evenly across the member strategies.
- Under Ranking-Based, the Combined's ranking metric defaults to **Price Change**, and four metrics are offered — Price Change, Average Momentum, Volatility and Sharpe Ratio. **P/E Ratio is not available at this level**; it exists only inside a single strategy.
- A newly added strategy starts **static** with a weight of 1, so a fresh Ranking-Based Combined has no rotating strategies and no rotation weights until you switch Rotate on.
- Rotation weights are relative, exactly like the rank-tier weights inside a single strategy — they are normalised to 100% before capital is assigned. A newly opened slot starts at 1.
- Every weight you type across a Combined — a Fixed Allocation weight, a Static weight or a rotation weight — accepts any number from 0 to 999, decimals included. A negative is not accepted: a Combined cannot be short one of its own strategies.
- Switching Rotate on and back off keeps the Static weight you typed: while a strategy rotates its static weight is simply not used — nor checked against the 0 to 999 range, so a value you cannot see never stops a save — and it returns unchanged when rotation stops.
- If the Combined's weights invest nothing — every Fixed Allocation weight at 0 or, under Ranking-Based, every static weight of a strategy that does not rotate and every rotation weight at 0 — the allocation invests nothing. It still saves, and a Combined says so only on its totals line, which reads "Invests nothing" in place of a number. The yellow "invests nothing" warning is raised for a single strategy's own allocation, not for the weights across a Combined.
- Weighting belongs to the allocation profile, so a Combined that has a Risk-Off allocation can weight its strategies one way in Risk-On and another way in Risk-Off.
- How the two layers are combined into the final positions is part of the engine and is not published; what is documented is that both layers apply and neither overrides the other.

## Worked example

A Combined holds three strategies — A, B and C — and rebalances monthly.

Under **Equal Weights**, each receives a third of capital every period. Under **Fixed Allocation**, you type 50, 30 and 20, and those shares hold whatever the three strategies do. Under **Ranking-Based**, you mark A as static with a **Static weight** of 20 and switch **Rotate** on for B and C. That leaves two rotation slots: you give Rank 1 a weight of 60 and Rank 2 a weight of 20. The raw total is 100, so A is held at 20% every period, whichever of B and C ranks higher on the chosen metric takes 60%, and the other takes 20%. Next month the ranking flips: B and C swap slots, their weights swap with them, and A's 20% does not move.