underweight

comparative more underweight · superlative most underweight

1. Of an inappropriately or unusually low weight.

   He's thirty pounds underweight.

   2 more examples

   He's so underweight he's had to buy smaller clothes.

   The market trader was fined for selling underweight bags of fruit.

2. Not too heavy for an intended purpose.

   The suitcase is just slightly underweight; I'll let it on the plane.

3. businessBeing less invested in a particular area than market wisdom suggests.

   The fund is underweight in mining.

   1 more example

   2011, Murdoch, S. Foreigners back for Aussie stocks, The Australian "It's a long-run trend of foreign investors -- typically being underweight the banking sector in Australia," Mr Baker said.

plural underweights

1. uncountableThe state or quality of being underweight.

   1 more example

   1996, United States Institute of Medicine Committee on Scientific Evaluation of WIC Nutrition Risk Criteria, WIC Nutrition Risk Criteria: A Scientific Assessment, National Academies Press, →ISBN, page 110, Underweight reflects the body’s thinness, but the term does not necessarily imply the nature and causes of underweight.

2. countableAn underweight person.
3. countablebusinessAn underweight investment.

   Consider a conventional long-only portfolio with underweights on holdings the investment manager does not like and overweights on holdings the manager does like.

   2011, Peter L. Bernstein, Capital Ideas Evolving, page 230

   1 more example

   Further, structured managers usually attempt to hit their lower targets by relying on a relatively large number of small active deviations (i.e., overweights and underweights).

   2004, Bob Litterman, Modern Investment Management: An Equilibrium Approach, page 198

present singular third person underweights · participle present underweighting · participle past underweighted · past underweighted

1. transitiveTo underestimate the weight of.
2. transitiveTo give insufficient weight to (a consideration); to underestimate the importance of.
3. transitivebusinessTo invest in less than conventional wisdom would dictate.

   Although the portfolio overweights the German market, it underweights German marks.

   2009, Philip Lawton, Todd Jankowski, Investment Performance Measurement, page 419