Risk & Return
Risk & Return
Risk & Return
8.1 Returns
Performance analysis of an investment requires
investors to measure returns over time.
Return and risk being intricately related, return
measurement helps in the understanding of
investment risk.
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8.1 Dollar Profits and Percentage Returns
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8.1 Dollar Profits and Percentage Returns
HPR = Profit
Cost
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8.1 Dollar Profits and Percentage Returns
Example: Calculating dollar and percentage
returns.
•Joe bought some gold coins for $1,000 and sold
them 4 months later for $1,200.
•Jane on the other hand bought 100 shares of a stock
for $10 and sold those 2 years later for $12 per share
after receiving $0.50 per share as dividends for the
year.
• Calculate the dollar profit and percent return
earned by each investor over their respective
holding periods.
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8.1 Dollar Profits and Percentage Returns
Joe’s Dollar Profit = Ending value – Original cost
= $1,200 - $1,000 = $200
Joe’s HPR = Dollar profit / Original cost
= $200/$1,000 = 20%
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8.1 Converting Holding Period Returns to
Annual Returns
• With varying holding periods, holding period returns are
not good for comparison, we need a similar time period.
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8.1 Converting Holding Period Returns to
Annual Returns
Example: Comparing HPRs.
Given Joe’s HPR of 20% over 4 months and Jane’s HPR
of 25% over 2 years, is it correct to conclude that Jane’s
investment performance was better than that of Joe?
Joe’s holding period (n) = 4/12 = 0.333 years
Joe’s APR = HPR/n = 20%/0.333 = 60%
Joe’s EAR = (1 + HPR)1/n – 1 =(1.20)1/0.33 – 1= 72.89%
Jane’s holding period = 2 years
Jane’s APR = HPR/n = 25%/2 = 12.5%
Jane’s EAR = (1 + HPR)1/n – 1 = (1 .25)1/2 – 1= 11.8%
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8.1 Extrapolating Holding Period Returns
Extrapolating short-term HPRs into APRs and EARs is
mathematically correct, but often unrealistic and
infeasible.
Implies earning the same periodic rate over and over
again in 1 year.
A short holding period with fairly high HPR would
lead to huge numbers if return is extrapolated.
What did it mean in Joe’s case of 20% every four
months?
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8.1 Extrapolating Holding Period Returns
Example 3: Unrealistic nature of APR and EAR
Let’s say you buy a share of stock for $2 and sell it a week
later for $2.50. Calculate your HPR, APR, and EAR. How
realistic are the numbers?
N = 1/52 or 0.01923 of 1 year.
Profit = $2.50 - $2.00 = $0.50
HPR = $0.5/$2.00 = 25%
APR = 25%/0.01923= 1300% or
= 25% x 52 weeks = 1300%
EAR = (1 + HPR)52 – 1
=(1.25)52 – 1= 109,526.27%
Highly Improbable!
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8.2 Risk (Certainty and Uncertainty)
• Future performance of most investments is uncertain.
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8.3 Historical Returns
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8.3 Historical Returns
• Two extremes small stocks and Treasury Bills
• Small company stocks earned the highest average
return (17.10%) over the 5 decades, but also had the
greatest variability 29.04%, widest range (103.39% - (-
40.54%)) = 143.93%), and were most spread out.
• 3-month treasury bills earned the lowest average
return, 5.23%, but their returns had lowest variability
(2.98%), a very small range (14.95% to 0.86% =
14.09%) and were much closely clustered around the
mean.
• Returns and risk are positively correlated.
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8.4 Variance and Standard Deviation as a
Measure of Risk
Variance and standard deviation are measures of
dispersion
Helps researchers determine how spread out or clustered
together a set of numbers or outcomes is around their
mean or average value.
The larger the variance, the greater is the variability and
hence the riskiness of a set of values.
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8.4 Variance and Standard Deviation as a
Measure of Risk
Example: Calculating the variance of returns for large-
company stocks
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8.4 Variance and Standard Deviation as a
Measure of Risk
Year Return (R - Mean) (R-Mean)2
1990 -3.20% -22.19% 0.0492396
1991 30.66% 11.67% 0.0136189
1992 7.71% -11.28% 0.0127238
1993 9.87% -9.12% 0.0083174
1994 1.29% -17.70% 0.0313290
1995 37.71% 18.72% 0.0350438
1996 23.07% 4.08% 0.0016646
1997 33.17% 14.18% 0.0201072
1998 28.58% 9.59% 0.0091968
1999 21.04% 2.05% 0.0004203
Total 189.90% .18166156
Average 18.99%
Variance 2.0184618%
Std. Dev 14.207%
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8.4 Variance and Standard Deviation as a
Measure of Risk
Variance = ∑(R-Mean)2
N–1
= 0.18166156
(10-1)
= 0.020184618 = 2.0184618%
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8.4 Normal Distribution
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8.4 Normal Distribution
• If Mean =10% and Standard deviation = 12% and data
are normally distributed:
• 68% probability that the return in the forthcoming
period will lie between 10% + 12% and 10% - 12% i.e.
between -2% and 22%.
• 95% probability that the return will lie between 10% +
24% and 10% - 24% i.e. between -14% and 34%
• 99% probability that the return will lie between
10%+36% and 10% -36% i.e. between -26% and 46%.
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8.4 Normal Distribution
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8.4 Normal Distribution
History shows that the higher the return one expects the greater
would be the risk (variability of return) that one would have to tolerate.
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8.5 Returns in an Uncertain World (Expectations
and Probabilities)
For future investments we need expected or ex-ante
rather than ex-post return and risk measures.
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8.5 Determining the Probabilities of All Potential
Outcomes.
When setting up probability distributions the
following 2 rules must be followed:
1. The sum of the probabilities must always
add up to 1.0 or 100%.
2. Each individual probability estimate must be
positive.
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8.5 Determining the Probabilities of All Potential
Outcomes
Example: Expected return and risk measurement.
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8.5 Determining the Probabilities of All Potential
Outcomes
Example (Answer)
E(r) = ∑ Probability of Economic State x Return in Economic State
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8.6 The Risk-and-Return Trade-off
Investments must be analyzed in terms of, both, their
return potential as well as their riskiness or variability.
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8.6 (A) Investment Rules
Investment rule number 1: If faced with 2 investment choices having
the same expected returns, select the one with the lower expected risk.
Investment rule number 2: If two investment choices have similar risk
profiles, select the one with the higher expected return.
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8.6 Investment Rules
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8.7 Diversification: Minimizing Risk or
Uncertainty
• Diversification is the spreading of wealth over a variety
of investment opportunities so as to eliminate some
risk.
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8.7 Diversification: Minimizing Risk or
Uncertainty
Table 8.4 presents a probability distribution of the
conditional returns of two firms, Zig and Zag, along with
those of a 50-50 portfolio of the two companies.
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8.7 Diversification: Minimizing Risk or
Uncertainty
The Portfolio’s expected return, E(rp), return can be
measured in 2 ways:
1) Weighted average of each stock’s expected return;
E(rp) = Weight in Zig x E(rZIG) + Weight in Zag x E(rZAG)
OR
2) Expected return of the portfolio’s conditional returns.
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8.7 Diversification: Minimizing Risk or
Uncertainty
The portfolio’s expected variance and standard deviation can be
measured by using the following equations:
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8.7 When Diversification Works
Must combine stocks that are not perfectly positively
correlated with each other to reduce variance.
The greater the negative correlation between 2 stocks
the greater the reduction in risk achieved by investing
in both stocks
The combination of these stocks reduces the range of
potential outcomes compared to 100% investment in a
single stock.
It may be possible to reduce risk without reducing
potential return.
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8.7 When Diversification Works
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8.7 When Diversification Works
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8.7 When Diversification Works
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8.7 When Diversification Works
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8. 7 Adding More Stocks to the Portfolio: Systematic
and Unsystematic Risk
Total risk is made up of two parts:
1. Unsystematic or Diversifiable risk and
2. Systematic or Non-diversifiable risk.
Unsystematic risk, Company specific risk, Diversifiable Risk
– product or labor problems.
Systematic risk, Market risk, Non-diversifiable Risk
– recession or inflation
Well-diversified portfolio -- one whose unsystematic risk has
been completely eliminated.
– Large mutual fund companies.
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8. 7 Adding More Stocks to the Portfolio: Systematic
and Unsystematic Risk
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8.8 Beta: The Measure of Risk in a Well-
Diversified Portfolio
Example: Calculating a portfolio beta.
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8.8 Beta: The Measure of Risk in a Well-
Diversified Portfolio
Stock Investment Weight of stock x Beta
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8.8 Beta: The Measure of Risk in a Well-
Diversified Portfolio
2 different measures of risk related to financial assets; standard
deviation (or variance) and beta.
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8.9 The Capital Asset Pricing Model and the
Security Market Line (SML)
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8.9 The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
The CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) is
operationalized in equation form via the SML
Used to quantify the relationship between expected
rate of return and systematic risk.
It states that the expected return of an investment is a
function of
1. The time value of money (the reward for waiting)
2. The current reward for taking on risk
3. The amount of risk
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8.9 The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
The equation is in effect a straight line equation of the form:
y=a+bx
Where, a is the intercept of the function;
b is the slope of the line,
x is the value of the random variable on the x-axis.
Substituting E(ri)as the y variable,
rf as the intercept a,
(E(rm)-rf ) as the slope b,
β as random variable on the x-axis,
we have the formal equation for the SML:
E(ri) = rf + β (E(rm)-rf )
Note: the slope of the SML is the market risk premium,
(E(rm)-rf ), and not beta. Beta is the random variable.
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8.9 The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
Example: Finding expected returns for a company with known
beta.
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8.9 Application of the SML
The SML has many practical applications such as….
1. Determining the prevailing market or average risk
premium
2. Determining the investment attractiveness of stocks.
3. Determining portfolio allocation weights and
expected return.
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8.9 Application of the SML
Example: Determining the market risk premium.
Stocks X and Y seem to be selling at their equilibrium
values as per the opinions of the majority of analysts.
Stock X has a beta of 1.5 and an expected return of
14.5%, and Stock Y has a beta of 0.8 and an expected
return of 9.6%
Calculate the prevailing market risk premium and the
risk-free rate.
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8.9 Application of the SML
ANSWER
The market risk premium is the slope of the SML, i.e. [E(rm) - rf]
we can solve for it as follows:
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8.9 Application of the SML
ANSWER
To calculate the risk-free rate we use the SML equation
by plugging in the expected rate for any of the stocks
along with its beta and the market risk premium of 7%
and solve.
14.5% = rf + 7% x 1.5
which implies rf = 14.5- 10.5 = 4%
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8.9 Application of the SML
Example: Assessing market attractiveness.
Let’s say that you are looking at investing in 2 stocks, A
and B.
A has a beta of 1.3 and based on your best estimates is
expected to have a return of 15%,
B has a beta of 0.9 and is expected to earn 9%.
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8.9 Application of the SML
Example: Assessing market attractiveness
Using the SML:
So, Stock A would plot above the SML, since 15%>13.1% and
would be considered undervalued, while stock B would plot
below the SML (9%<10.3%) and would be considered
overvalued.
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8.9 Application of the SML
Example: Calculating portfolio expected return and
allocation using 2 stocks.
Andrew has decided that given the current economic
conditions he wants to have a portfolio with a beta of 0.9,
and is considering Stock R with a beta of 1.3 and Stock S
with a beta of 0.7 as the only 2 candidates for inclusion.
If the risk-free rate is 4% and the market risk premium is
7%, what will his portfolio’s expected return be and how
should he allocate his money among the two stocks?
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8.9 Application of the SML
Example: Calculating portfolio expected return and allocation
using 2 stocks.
Determine portfolio expected return using the SML
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