Evaluating multi-criteria ratings of financial investment options

In the financial market, most available rating information is based on multi-criteria and published by myriad agents or companies. Given a multi-criteria rating report on a finite number of assets (e.g., stocks, bonds, mutual funds), we can construct sets of ordered classes. If ratings from a published report have useful and valid information value as claimed, the average performances of assets within classes are expected to show some monotonic property. A set of hypotheses and empirical tests based on Value Line Mutual Fund Survey are provided to illustrate our proposed method. Implications and future research opportunities are also discussed.