In general, "past performance" refers to how something has performed in the past, for example how an athlete, a business, an investment portfolio, an individual stock, a sports team or a race horse has performed. The term "past performance" is used more specifically in relation to government procurement,

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...

and mutual fund disclosure documents.

Government Procurement

United Kingdom

Crown Commercial Service The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) is an executive agency and trading fund of the Cabinet Office (United Kingdom), Cabinet Office of the UK Government. The CCS is responsible for managing the government procurement, procurement of common goods a ...

's Procurement Policy Note 04/15, applicable to central government departments, executive agencies and

non-departmental public bodies In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of na ...

, sets out UK government policy effective from 1 April 2015 regarding use of suppliers' past performance information when awarding public contracts.

United States

Past performance is a central element of the process used by U.S. government agencies when they evaluate companies and proposals to determine which ones will be awarded contracts. Knowledge and awareness of how past performance is evaluated are critical to successful proposals to perform government work. Although past performance is a natural consideration and has been used as an implied evaluation factor, its use was not formalized by the U.S. government until the 1960s through a Department of Defense past performance reporting system known as the Contractor Performance Report. Defining past performance as an evaluation factor distinguishes it from past performance information, or relevant information about a contractor’s actions under previously awarded contracts. In practice in the U.S. government contracting market, the term “past performance” includes three elements; 1) what work a contractor performed, 2) judgments about the breadth, depth and relevance of that experience and 3) judgments about how well the contractor performed. The Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), accessible through the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) until the two systems were merged on 15 January 2019, is the U.S. government enterprise solution for collection and retention of contractor past performance information. The main activity associated with this system is the documentation of contractor and grantee performance information that is required by federal regulations (see Federal Acquisition Regulations part 42.15). This is accomplished in web-enabled reports referred to as CPARS reports or report cards. These reports are available to U.S. government agencies making contract award decisions.

Horse Racing

Past Performances appear on horse racing programs such as the DRF ( Daily Racing Form), Equibase, and Brisnet. Information on

jockey A jockey is someone who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing. The word "jockey" originated from England and was used to describe the individual ...

s, trainers, date of races, finishes in races, speed figures, odds and more of the last 10 races are provided to give handicappers a sense of history and information to bet with. Horse racing handicappers study the past performance of each horse in a race, examining among other things the combination of speed, endurance and grit demonstrated by the animal in prior meets.

Mutual Fund Disclosures

The phrase “past performance is not an indicator of future performance” (or similar) can be found in the fine print of most mutual fund literature. Nonetheless, past performance of an investment fund or portfolio, and the management thereof, is frequently considered when judging the fund or the management of it. Demonstrating the ability to outperform peers or index funds repeatedly is seen as a way to evaluate a fund manager’s skill. The S&P Persistence Scorecard is published twice a year to answer the question of whether past performance in investment funds matters. This report tracks the consistency of top performers over yearly consecutive periods and measures performance persistence through transition matrices. The University of Chicago’s Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) Survivorship Bias Free Mutual Fund Database serves as the underlying data source for these reports.S&P Dow Jones Indices, January 2016, Does Past Performance Matter? The Persistence Scorecard
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References

{{reflist Government procurement Horse racing Mutual funds