Alpha is widely used by investors and fund managers to gauge the effectiveness of their investment strategies or asset selection. A positive alpha signifies that a manager or strategy has generated value beyond the expected return based on the risk taken. For example, if an investment has an alpha of 1, it means the investment has outperformed the benchmark by 1%. Alpha is a key metric in active investing, where the goal is to beat the market, as opposed to passive investing, which seeks to match market returns.