80% of... What?

This Wall Street Journal article has a chart which could say so much more.

It's a bar chart.  The height of the red line shows the share, in percentage points, of asset classes that had a loss each year.  These asset classes are defined by Deutsche Bank.  It's an interesting idea, but raises a lot more questions than it answers.

(A terrific score on the GMAT will take your career to the next level.  Contact the GMAT Doctor.)

How did they pick the asset classes?  It's possible to define different portfolios to make these numbers come out any way you want.

How big are they, relative to each other?  Are any correlated with each other?  Imagine a world where there were 90 asset classes that all had a loss but are tiny in size, while most people's portfolios are in ten other asset classes that make up the majority of everyone's portfolio.  Would that be a good year or a bad year?

This chart treats any size loss the same.  Try convincing someone that a 1% loss is similar to a 25% loss.

It's not bad to have a chart that raises questions, but a more complete analysis would anticipate such questions.

Also, on a practical level, couldn't you make money by shorting some of these asset classes?