Performance is measured by sorting expected returns from lowest to highest. The population includes roughly the largest 3,000 US stocks plus additional stocks that are in the S&P 500 index plus stocks that are requested by individual clients. Then we divide the list into 10 groupings, or deciles. So, assuming, in a given month, there are 3,300 companies in the universe, decile 1 (lowest expected return) would have 330 stocks.
