Chapter Four

Risk and return

4.1 Understanding and measuring Risk

Return
In finance, rate of return is also known as return on investment (ROI), rate of profit or also called as return. Rate
of Return is the ratio of money gained or lost generated on an investment relative to the amount of money
invested, whether realized or unrealized. The amount of money gained or lost may be referred to as interest;
profit/loss, gain/loss, or net income/net loss. It is a reward for undertaking investment. It is the motivating force
that drive investment

Risk is the probability of earning lesser return than the expected one or incurring loss. Risk is often associated
with the dispersion in the likely outcomes. Dispersion refers to variability. It is a chance of unfavorable event to
occur.

Risk is assumed to arise out of variability, which is consistent with our definition of risk as the chance that the
actual outcome of an investment will differ from the expected outcome. For example; if an investor expects a 10%
rate of return on a given investment, then any return less than 10% is considered harmful. If an asset's return has
no variability, in effect it has no risk. An example on this regard is Government treasury securities. This is
basically because virtually there is no chance that the government will fail to redeem these securities at maturity
or that the treasury will default on any interest payment owed.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of risks that the investors will deal with:
(1) Unsystematic Risk
(2) Systematic Risk
(1) Unsystematic risk: It also called diversifiable risk, unique risk, or firm-specific risk. It is a risk that associated
to a particular security. Such as; risk created from employee strikes or management decision change.
For example, if the asset under consideration is stock in a single company,
 The negative NPV projects will tend to decrease the value of stock.
 Unanticipated lawsuits, industrial accidents, strikes etc will decrease the share values.
Unsystematic risk is essentially eliminated by diversification, so a portfolio with many assets has almost no
unsystematic risk.
(2) Systematic risk: is a risk that will affect all in the same manner. It also called as undiversifiable risk,
unavoidable risk, or market risk. It affects an overall market. Its examples are such as:
 changes in nation’s economy
 tax reforms
 change is world energy situation

These are the risks that affect securities overall (whether in a portfolio or single) and, consequently, cannot be
diversified away. An investor who holds a well-diversified portfolio will be exposed to this type of risk.
Therefore: Total Risk = Unsystematic Risk + Systematic Risk
4.1.1 Measuring risk
Risk can be measured in absolute term using the Measure of dispersion; they includes range, variance and
standard deviation.
RANGE: Range can be used as a measure of variability (difference between the maximum and minimum return),
however it is a poor measure since it only uses 2 observations.

The range of total possible returns

on the stock A runs from +30% to
+40%. If the required return on the
stock is 10%, then those outcomes
less than 10% represent risk to this
investor.

As a rough measure of risk, range tells us that common stock is more risky than treasury bills.
Standard Deviation (σ): An absolute measure of risk
The most commonly used measure of dispersion over some time period is the standard deviation, which measures
the deviation of each observation from the arithmetic mean of the observations and is a reliable measure of
variability, because all the information in a sample is used. The standard deviation is a measure of the total risk of
an asset or a portfolio. It can be represented by “σ”. It captures the total variability in the assets or portfolios
return whatever the source of that variability. A standard deviation is useful to evaluate investments, which have
approximately equaled in expected returns. In other word, standard deviation is the square root of variance.
Standard deviation can be calculated based on both forecasted returns and historical returns.
(i) Ex-post Standard Deviation
The following formula used for calculate historical Standard Deviation is:

√
n

∑ ( r i − AR )2
i=1
Ex post σ =
n−1

where: σ = the standard deviation AR = Average return

ri = possible return in time i n = number of observations

Note: To calculate the historical standard deviation, first we should have to calculate historical average return.
EXAMPLE: Assume the following historical returns for the past five consecutive on investment of stock A and
estimate the standard deviation: 10%, 24%, -12%, 8% and 10%.
Step 1 – Calculate the Historical Average Return
n
∑ ri
10+24-12+8+10 40
Average Returm ( AR ) = i =1 = = =8 . 0 %
n 5 5
Step 2 – Calculate the Standard Deviation

√
n ¿
∑ ( r i −r )2
Ex-post σ =
i=1
n−1
=
√ ( 10-8)2 +( 24−8 )2 +(−12−8)2 +( 8−8 )2 +( 14−8 )2
5−1

=
√ 22 +16 2 −202 +0 2 +22
4
=
4 √
4 +256+ 400+0+ 4
=
664
4 √
=√ 166=12 .88 %

(ii) Estimating Ex-ante Standard Deviation

Ex-ante standard deviation can be calculated in a similar way to ex-ante returns. Scenario based standard
deviation is as below:
 √∑
n
2
Ex-ante σ = (Probi )×(r i−ER i )
i =1

Where: Probi= probability of scenario i

ri = possible return at scenario i

ERi = Expected return of the security i

Note: To calculate the Ex-ante standard deviation also, first we should have to calculate expected return.
EXAMPLE: Assume the following possible returns on investment of stock A under three scenarios (State of the
Economy) and their respective probability of their occurrence and estimate the standard deviation:
State of the Possible Returns
Economy Probability on Security A
Recession 25.0% -22.0%
Normal 50.0% 14.0%
Boom 25.0% 35.0%
Solution: First, calculate expected return of stock A:
ERA = 0.25(-22%) + 0.50(14%) + 0.25(35%) = 10.3%
Then; using the formula of ex-ante standard deviation calculate it:

√
n
Ex ante σ = ∑ (Probi )×(ri−ER i )2
i=1
= √ P1 (r 1−ER A )2 +P2 (r 2 −ER A )2 +P3 (r 3 −ER A )2
= √. 25(−22−10 .3 )2 +. 5(14−10 .3 )2 +. 25(35−10. 3 )2
= √. 25(−32. 3)2 +.5 (3 . 8 )2 +. 25(24 . 8)2
= √. 25(.10401 )+.5(. 00141)+. 25(. 06126)
= √. 0420
=. 205=20. 5 %
Another way to calculating Ex-ante Standard Deviation is also illustrated below:
First Step: Calculating expected return of stock A.

ERA = 0.25(-22%) + 0.50(14%) + 0.25(35%) = 10.3%

Second Step: Measure the Weighted and Squared Deviations
 Deviation of
Possible Weighted Possible Return Weighted and
State of the Returns on Possible from Expected Squared Squared
Economy Probability Security Returns Return Deviations Deviations
(a) (b) (c) (d)=(b)*(c) (e)=(c)-(ER) (f)=(e)2 (g)=(f)*(b)
Recession 25.0% -22.0% -5.5% -32.3% 0.10401 0.02600
Normal 50.0% 14.0% 7.0% 3.8% 0.00141 0.00070
Economic Boom 25.0% 35.0% 8.8% 24.8% 0.06126 0.01531
** Expected Return(ER)=10.3% Variance(σ2) =0.0420
Standard Deviation(σ) = 20.50%
Key Note: In the above table, letters in the brackets are expressed as follows:
Column (a), (b), & (c) are given.
(d)= Expected return is determined by multiplying the probabilities with the possible returns &** is the sum of
column (d).
(e)=Calculate the deviation of possible returns from the expected return.
(f)= Square those deviations from the mean.
(g)= Multiply the square deviations by their probability of occurrence.
(σ2)= The sum of the weighted and square deviations is the variance in percent squared
(σ)=The standard deviation is the square root of the variance (in percent terms).
 In general, the higher the standard deviation means the higher the variability/risk.
Example 2: Suppose an investor is considering an investment of 200,000 in the stock of XYZ co or ABC co.
hoping to gain dividend and selling it at appreciated price after one yr. Over the year it is presumed that the
economy will be 20% at boom, 60% at normal and 20% at recession. Calculate the standard deviation given the
following rate of returns in various economic conditions?
Economic Probabilities Return of Return of Expected return of Expected return of
conditions XYZ ABC XYZ ABC
Boom 0.2 10% -4% 2% -0.8%
Normal 0.6 11% 20% 6.6% 12%
Recessions 0.2 26% 40% 5.2% 8%
ER 1 13.8% 19.2%
Let us calculate the standard deviation of the above example.
The Probability distribution, can be discrete or continuous, is discrete in our example. A discrete probability
distribution has a limited number of possible outcomes while a continuous probability distribution indicates the
probability of possible outcomes.
Economic conditions Pi Ri ER (Ri-ER)2 (Ri-ER)2 * Pi
Boom 0.2 0.1 0.138 0.00144 0.0002888
 Normal 0.6 0.11 0.138 0.00078 0.0004704
Recessions 0.2 0.26 0.138 0.01488 0.0029768
Variance 0.003736
Standard deviation of XYZ co

SD = √ var iance = √ 0.003736 = 0.061122827

Economic conditions Pi Ri ER (Ri-ER)2 (Ri-ER)2 * Pi
Boom 0.2 -0.04 0.192 0.053824 0.010765
Normal 0.6 0.20 0.192 0.000064 0.000038
Recessions 0.2 0.40 0.192 0.043264 0.008653
Variance 0.019456
Standard deviation of ABC co

SD = √ var iance = √ 0.019456 =0.139484766

4.2. Portfolios
PORTFOLIO WEIGHTS
Portfolio is a group of assets such as stocks and bonds held by an investor. There are many equivalent ways of
describing a portfolio. The most convenient approach is to list the percentage of the total portfolio’s value that is
invested in each portfolio asset. We call these percentages the portfolio weights.
For example, if we have $50 in one asset and $150 in another, our total portfolio is worth $200. The percentage of
our portfolio in the first asset is $50/$200 = .25. The percentage of our portfolio in the second asset is $150/$200,
or .75. Our portfolio weights are thus .25 and .75. Notice that the weights have to add up to 1.00 because all of our
money is invested somewhere.1
PORTFOLIO EXPECTED RETURNS
Assume you have two stock; Stocks L and U. You put half your money in each. The portfolio weights are
obviously .50 and .50. What is the pattern of returns on this portfolio? The expected return?
To answer these questions, suppose the economy actually enters a recession. In this case, half your money (the
half in L) loses 20 percent. The other half (the half in U) gains 30 percent. Your portfolio return, RP, in a
recession is thus
RP = .50 x -20% + .50 x30% = 5%
This method of calculating the expected return on a portfolio works no matter how many assets there are in the
portfolio. Suppose we had n assets in our portfolio, where n is any number. If we let xi stand for the percentage of
our money in Asset i, then the expected return would be:
E(RP) = X1 x E(R1 ) + X2 x E(R2 ) + . . . + Xn X E(R n )

4.3 Diversification and Portfolio Risk

THE PRINCIPLE OF DIVERSIFICATION
Some of the riskiness associated with individual assets can be eliminated by forming portfolios. The process of
spreading an investment across assets (and thereby forming a portfolio) is called diversification. The principle of
diversification tells us that spreading an investment across many assets will eliminate some of the risk. There is a
minimum level of risk that cannot be eliminated simply by diversifying. This minimum level is labeled “non-
diversifiable risk”
DIVERSIFICATION AND UNSYSTEMATIC RISK
By definition, an unsystematic risk is one that is particular to a single asset or, at most, a small group. For
example, if the asset under consideration is stock in a single company, the discovery of positive NPV projects
such as successful new products and innovative cost savings will tend to increase the value of the stock.
Unanticipated lawsuits, industrial accidents, strikes, and similar events will tend to decrease future cash flows and
thereby reduce share values.
Here is the important observation: If we held only a single stock, the value of our investment would fluctuate
because of company-specific events. If we hold a large portfolio, on the other hand, some of the stocks in the
portfolio will go up in value because of positive company-specific events and some will go down in value because
of negative events. The net effect on the overall value of the portfolio will be relatively small, however, because
these effects will tend to cancel each other out. Now we see why some of the variability associated with individual
assets is eliminated by diversification. When we combine assets into portfolios, the unique, or unsystematic,
events— both positive and negative—tend to “wash out” once we have more than just a few assets.
Unsystematic risk is essentially eliminated by diversification, so a portfolio with many assets has almost no
unsystematic risk. In fact, the terms diversifiable risk and unsystematic risk are often used interchangeably.

DIVERSIFICATION AND SYSTEMATIC RISK

By definition, a systematic risk affects almost all assets to some degree. As a result, no matter how many assets
we put into a portfolio, the systematic risk doesn’t go away. Thus, for obvious reasons, the terms systematic risk
and non-diversifiable risk are used interchangeably. Because we have introduced so many different terms
Systematic risk is also called non-diversifiable risk or market risk. Unsystematic risk is also called diversifiable
risk, unique risk, or asset-specific risk. For a well-diversified portfolio, the unsystematic risk is negligible. For
such a portfolio, essentially all of the risk is systematic

MEASURING SYSTEMATIC RISK

Because systematic risk is the crucial determinant of an asset’s expected return, we need some way of measuring
the level of systematic risk for different investments. The specific measure we will use is called the beta
coefficient, for which we will use the Greek symbol. A beta coefficient, or beta for short, tells us how much
systematic risk a particular asset has relative to an average asset.
By definition, an average asset has a beta of 1.0 relative to itself. An asset with a beta of .50, therefore, has half as
much systematic risk as an average asset; an asset with a beta of 2.0 has twice as much. Betas outside this range
occur, but they are less common. The important thing to remember is that the expected return, and thus the risk
premium, of an asset depends only on its systematic risk. Because assets with larger betas have greater systematic
risks, they will have greater expected returns.
PORTFOLIO BETAS
Earlier, we saw that the riskiness of a portfolio has no simple relationship to the risks of the assets in the
portfolio. A portfolio beta, however, can be calculated, just like a portfolio expected return.
For example, suppose you put half of your money in A and half in B. What would the beta of this combination
be? Because A has a beta of .85 and B has a beta of 1.80, the portfolio’s beta, P, would be:

In general, if we had many assets in a portfolio, we would multiply each asset’s beta by its portfolio weight and
then add the results to get the portfolio’s beta
4.4 Risk and the required rate of return
The relationship among risk and return is positive which means an increase of one result an increase to the other.
For this reason is then there will be always a risk return trade off.
Required rate of return = Risk free rate of return+ Risk premium
Risk premium is a potential reward that an investor expects to receive when making a risky investment. This is
based on a theory that investors are risk averse that is they expect an average to be compensated for the risk that
they assume when making investment.
Risk free rate of return: It is the return available on security with no risk of default.
Risk free rate of return= Real rate of return + Expected inflation premium
Real rate of return: is the return that investors would require from security having no risk of default in a period
of no expected inflation. Real rate of return is a return necessary to convince investors to postpone current, real
consumption opportunities. It is determined by the interaction of the supply of funds made available by savers and
the demand for funds for investment. The second component of risk fee rate of return is an inflation premium or
purchasing power loss premium.
THE SECURITY MARKET LINE
The relationship between an individual security’s expected rate of return and its systematic risk as measured by
beta will be linear, this relationship is called as Security Market Line The line that results when we plot expected
returns and beta coefficients is obviously of some importance, so it’s time we gave it a name. This line, which we
use to describe the relationship between systematic risk and expected return in financial markets, is usually called
the security market line (SML). After NPV, the SML is arguably the most important concept in modern finance.
Market Portfolios It will be very useful to know the equation of the SML. There are many different ways we could
write it, but one way is particularly common. Suppose we consider a portfolio made up of all of the assets in the
market. Such a portfolio is called a market portfolio, and we will express the expected return on this market
portfolio as E(RM ). Because all the assets in the market must plot on the SML, so must a market portfolio made
up of those assets. To determine where it plots on the SML, we need to know the beta of the market portfolio, M.
Because this portfolio is representative of all of the assets in the market, it must have average systematic risk. In
other words, it has a beta of 1. We could therefore express the slope of the SML as

The Capital Asset Pricing Model

CAPM is models that establish the linear relationship between un-diversifiable risk (systematic risk) and expected
return. According to CAPM, the investor needs to be compensated in two ways, for time value of money (risk free
rate) and for taking systematic risk. A security’s expected return is risk free rate plus a premium based on the
systematic risk of security. To finish up, if we let E(Ri ) and i stand for the expected return and beta, respectively,
on any asset in the market, then we know that asset must plot on the SML. As a result, we know that its reward-to-
risk ratio is the same as the overall markets:

This result is the famous capital asset pricing model (CAPM).

The CAPM shows that the expected return for a particular asset depends on three things:

1. The pure time value of money: As measured by the risk-free rate, Rf , this is the reward for merely waiting for
your money, without taking any risk.

2. The reward for bearing systematic risk: As measured by the market risk premium, E(RM ) - Rf , this
component is the reward the market offers for bearing an average amount of systematic risk in addition to waiting.
3. The amount of systematic risk: As measured by Bi, this is the amount of systematic risk present in a particular
asset or portfolio, relative to that in an average asset.

By the way, the CAPM works for portfolios of assets just as it does for individual assets. In an earlier section, we
saw how to calculate a portfolio’s. To find the expected return on a portfolio, we simply use this in the CAPM
equation