Midterm 3 Part 1 Flashcards
What is Return - Risk Free Rate?
Actual Return or Adjusted Return
What is the risk free rate?
It’s a theoretical rate that you would get if there was absolutely no risk.
It represents what the investor would expect to get if there was no risk involved.
Why is the risk free rate theoretical?
Because it’s impossible to have an investment with absolutely no risk.
How is the risk free rate calculated?
It’s usually the interest rate of a 3 month U.S. treasury bill (because it’s very unlikely that the U.S. will default on its bonds).
Why is the risk free rate important?
Because it is the baseline for banks and corporations in setting their own interest rates.
For example, they start with the risk free rate and then add additional interest depending on the risks involved with that type of investment.
True or False: The risk free rate is the minimum return an investor expects to get.
True
Should you invest your money if the potential rate of return is less than the risk free rate?
NO! If the potential/expected rate of return is less than the risk free rate, it means you are getting less than the bare minimum return.
What is absolute risk?
The risk of making a loss on an investment.
It’s the probability that something will go wrong.
What is relative risk?
It is the comparison of risk on some investment to a common standard of risk, in the U.S. stock market, that standard is the S&P 500
What is default risk?
The risk that the investment will default and will not be able to pay you back (like of the company defaulted, or in the case of the U.S. treasury bond, if the U.S. couldn’t pay their debts).
What is this:
σ
The sign for standard deviation or the volatility of an investment.
Basically, this is the “risk” of the investment.
What is the Sharpe Ratio formula:
σ
In the Sharpe ratio, is it better to have a small or large denominator compared to its numerator?
Better to have a small denominator compared to the numerator. This means that there is relatively little risk and the returns are high.
True or False: The higher the Sharpe ratio is, the better.
True
True or False: The Sharpe ratio is best applied to stocks/investments that are different.
FALSE.
It works best when you’re comparing things that are similar.
How would you define risk?
It is uncertainty about the market. It could mean something bad will happen, but it could also mean something GOOD will happen.
That’s why risk is often compared to volatility, because it fluctuates, rather than just going straight down.
IT IS THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE ACTUAL RETURN WILL DIFFER FROM THE EXPECTED RETURN.
Downside risk
The chance of something bad happening
Upside risk
The chance of something good happening
What does the risk appetite mean?
It is referring to the three components to consider when deciding if you want to invest in something. Like how “hungry” are you to invest in that specific thing?
It weighs your needs, your ability, and your willingness to make the investment (usually determined by risk)
True or False: It’s better to pull out of the market when it’s fluctuating a lot.
False.
Riding it out usually gets you the best returns.
Is return usually written as an annualized percentage?
YES!
Returns are measured in an annual period by default.
Holding Period
The length of time you hold an asset before selling it
Annualized return
It is the return rate calculated for the YEAR, rather than just the holding period.
Historical data
Past prices and cash flows. It is often used to forecast.
Expectational data
Our best guess or estimate of future cash flows and prices, based on a hypothesized state of the world.
Nominal rate
The interest rate without considering inflation.
True or False: Volatility is a measure of TOTAL risk.
True
What two parts make up TOTAL risk?
Systematic and unsystematic
What is unsystematic risk?
It is firm-specific risk, and doesn’t apply to the whole market, just that company.
What is systematic risk?
Risk that has to do with the overall economy.
What’s another name for systematic risk?
Market risk
How do you get rid of unsystematic risk?
You diversify your portfolio and make it larger.
The more assets you have in your portfolio, the better that risk will average out.
Diversification
The averaging out of firm-specific risk as you invest in many different types of assets.
Because even if something bad happens to one firm, something really good may happen to another.
Diversifiable risk
Firm-specific risk, unsystematic risk
What happens as you diversify your portfolio and minimize unsystematic risk?
The volatility or standard deviation is going to go down.
What does standard deviation measure?
The total disparity between the ups and the downs of an asset’s volatility. Just think of the graph on youtube. The larger the gap between the highest high and the lowest low, the larger the standard deviation.
The goal is to make it as small as possible.
True or False: The greater the standard deviation, the greater the uncertainty; and the greater the uncertainty, the greater the total risk.
True
True or False: For a standard deviation mean of +1/-1, we expect to see about 68% of returns fall into those ranges.
True
What percentage of returns will fall into the +2/-2 range of standard deviation?
95% on a regular graph
What percentage of returns will fall into the +3/-3 range of standard deviation?
99.7% on a regular graph
Does standard deviation measure systematic or unsystematic risk?
WRONG, trick question, it can only measure TOTAL risk.
What is the relationship between risk and return?
It is positive. Greater risk = greater return
What are the three most common market risk factors?
- Interest rate changes
- Tax changes that create unexpected cash flows
- Business cycle changes
What are three examples of firm-specific risk?
- A company’s labor force goes on strike
- change in company management
- Oil tank bursts and floods a company’s production area