This study examines sixteen models of monthly Value-at-Risk (VaR) for three equity indices. We investigate the importance of historical simulation versus a parametrized approach, the presence of filter versus a static modeling of the return distribution, the choice of GARCH versus RiskMetrics conditional variances and the use of monthly versus daily data sampling frequencies. Tests for unconditional and conditional coverage and for independence show that two daily GARCH-type FHS models perform the best.