One thing to keep in mind is that even though the return of the security for the last month, quarter, or year may be positive, the overall Jensen’s alpha may be negative. The reason for this is that the return did not compensate enough over the average market return based on the beta of the security. On the other hand, you could see a security with negative return but a positive alpha in a down-trending market. In this case, a security may have fallen less than expected based on its relative risk-adjusted performance to the market.