---
title: "Contribution analytics"
description: "Contribution analytics splits a Combined's return, risk, Sharpe and VaR into one share per strategy plus a Residual row, so the parts add up to the whole."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/contribution-analytics"
last_updated: "2026-10-06"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/contribution-analytics.md"
---

# Contribution analytics

Contribution analytics is the card at the top of a [Combined](/glossary/combined)'s **Components** tab, titled "Strategies: where the result comes from", that splits the Combined's return, risk, [Sharpe](/glossary/sharpe-ratio) and [daily VaR](/glossary/value-at-risk) among its strategies, with a **Residual** row for what belongs to no [strategy](/glossary/strategy). Every column adds up to the Combined's own figure, so the parts explain the whole.

**Also seen as:** return attribution, risk attribution, risk contribution, performance attribution

## How does Fincanva handle it?

- The card is for a Combined only: a single strategy has one part, and nothing to split. It sits above the rest of [strategy analytics](/glossary/strategy-analytics) on the **Components** tab and needs no plan of its own — it is included wherever that tab is.
- The return here is the [**arithmetic** average annual return](/glossary/backtest-reliability#what-is-the-average-annual-return-arithmetic) — the average daily return scaled to a year — so it does not match the compound growth rate, [CAGR](/glossary/cagr), on Performance Metrics; the card says so beside it ("different from Metrics' CAGR").
- The daily VaR is the Gaussian one: it assumes daily returns follow a normal distribution with the period's own average and [volatility](/glossary/volatility). The historical VaR on [Performance Metrics](/docs/analysis/what-every-number-in-performance-metrics-means) makes no such assumption, so the two can differ.
- A period selector narrows the card to one calendar year. If a year has too few trading days to split, the card says so and shows the whole period.
- It follows the tab's **Simulation settings**: switching **Costs & interests**, **Taxes** or **Reinvest profits** recomputes it, and brings the period back to the whole [backtest](/glossary/backtest).

## What does each column of contribution analytics show?

One row per strategy, then **Residual**, and the Combined's totals in the header above the table.

| Column | What it says about the strategy |
|---|---|
| **Average weight** | the share of the Combined's capital it held, on average over the period |
| **Return contribution** | how much of the Combined's average annual return it produced |
| **Risk share** | how much of the Combined's volatility it is responsible for, shown as a bar |
| **Sharpe contribution** | how much of the Combined's Sharpe it accounts for, in Sharpe points |
| **VaR 95% contribution** | how much of the Combined's daily VaR at 95% it accounts for |

In prose: the first column is how big each piece was, and the other four are how much of the result it made. The header gives the totals the columns add up to — **Average annual return (arithmetic)**, **Annual volatility**, **Sharpe** with the [risk-free rate](/glossary/risk-free-rate) it used, and **Daily VaR 95% · Gaussian**.

## How can the parts add up exactly to the whole?

Because each column splits the Combined's own figure rather than measuring the strategies one by one. A strategy's return contribution is its weight times its return, day by day, averaged and scaled to a year; those add up to the Combined's return. Volatilities do not add — two strategies of 10% volatility make less than 20% together when they do not move in step — so the risk share uses the standard Euler allocation:

$$
{RC_i} = {w_i} \times {\frac{\partial \sigma}{\partial w_i}}
\qquad
\sum_i {RC_i} = \sigma
$$

where:

- strategy i's contribution to the volatility σ; divided by σ, its Risk share
- strategy i's weight
- how much the Combined's volatility would rise if that weight grew a little

Charged that way, the shares always add up to 100%, and a strategy that moves against the others can take a **negative** share: it lowers the Combined's risk. **VaR 95% contribution** follows the risk share: the Combined's daily Gaussian VaR is its volatility term less its average return, and each strategy is charged its risk share of the first and its return contribution of the second. **Sharpe contribution** is each strategy's return contribution above the risk-free rate — charged to each row in proportion to its average weight — divided by the Combined's volatility, so the rows sum to the Combined's Sharpe. The table is rounded to four decimals, so a column can miss its total by a hair; the whole is still exact.

## What does it look like in practice?

A Combined holds two strategies, an equity strategy at 60% of the capital and a bond strategy at 40%, and returns 7.0% a year with 10% volatility. The equity strategy's row shows a return contribution of 5.8% and a risk share of 94%; the bond strategy's shows 1.5% and 6%; **Residual** shows −0.3% of return — costs outweighing cash interest — and no share of the risk. Return: 5.8 + 1.5 − 0.3 = 7.0%. Risk: 94 + 6 = 100%. Read the risk column and the picture is clear: the bonds hold 40% of the money and account for about a sixteenth of the risk, and nearly all of the Combined's ups and downs come from the equities.

### What is the Residual row?

**Residual** holds everything in the Combined's result that belongs to no single strategy: interest on the cash the Combined held, its costs, and its taxes — the app's own note under it reads "interest on cash, costs, taxes". It is what makes every column add up, so it is always shown, never hidden. Its **Average weight** is the average share of the Combined held in no strategy at all, which is cash. It can be **negative**: a Combined investing more than its capital, with [leverage](/glossary/leverage), holds less than no cash — it has borrowed.

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)