The Trade-off Between Risk and Return

1. The Trade-off BetweenRisk and Return Professor Dr. Rainer Stachuletz International Markets and Corporate Finance Berlin School of Economics and Law Fußzeile

2. Risk and Return The return earned on investments represents the marginal benefit of investing. Risk represents the marginal cost of investing. A trade-off always arises between expected risk and expected return. Fußzeile

3. Risk and Return Valuing risky assets - a task fundamental to financial management Three-step procedure for valuing a risky asset 1. Determine the asset’s expected cash flows 2. Choose discount rate that reflects asset’s risk 3. Calculate present value (PV cash inflows - PV outflows) The three-step procedure is called discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. Fußzeile

4. Components of the total return Income stream from the investment Capital gain or loss due to changes in asset prices Financial Return Total return: the total gain or loss experienced on an investment over a given period of time Total return can be expressed either in dollar terms or in percentage terms. Fußzeile

5. Terrell bought 100 shares of Micro-Orb stock for $25 A year later: Dividend = $1/share Sold for $30/share Dollar return = (100 shares) x ($1 + $5) = $600 Owen bought 50 shares of Garcia Inc. stock for $15 A year later: No dividends paid Sold for $25/share Dollar return = (50 shares) x ($10) = $500 Dollar Returns Total dollar return = income + capital gain / loss Fußzeile

6. Percentage return: total dollar return divided by the initial investment Percentage Returns Terrell’s dollar return exceeded Owen’s by $100. Can we say that Terrell was better off? No, because Terrell and Owen’s initial investments were different: Terrell spent $2,500 in initial investment, while Owen spent $750. Fußzeile

7. Percentage Returns In percentage terms, Owen’s investment performed better than Terrell’s Fußzeile

8. 100,000 Equities Bonds Bills Inflation $15,579 10,000 1,000 $148 100 $61 $22 10 1 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2003 Year $1 Investment in Equities, Treasury Bonds and Bills Fußzeile

9. Percentage Returns on BillsBonds, and Stocks Difference between average return of stocks and bills = 7.6% Difference between average return of stocks and bonds = 6.5% Risk premium: the difference in returns offered by a risky asset relative to the risk-free return available Fußzeile

10. <-30 -30 to -20 to -10 to 0 to 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 to >50 Percent return in a given year -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 Distribution of Historical Stock Returns, 1900 - 2003 Probability distribution for future stock returns is unknown. We can approximate the unknown distribution by assuming a normal distribution. Fußzeile

11. Variability of Stock Returns • Normal distribution can be described by its mean and its variance. • Variance (2) - the expected value of squared deviations from the mean Variance (%-squared) - hard to interpret, so calculate standard deviation, a measure of volatility equal to square root of 2 Fußzeile

12. Volatility of Asset Returns • Average return on stocks is more than double the average return on bonds, but stocks are 2.5 times more volatile. • Asset classes with greater volatility pay higher average returns. Fußzeile

13. Average Return (%) Stocks Bonds Bills Standard Deviation (%) Average Returns and St. Dev. for Asset Classes • Investors who want higher returns have to take more risk • The incremental reward from accepting more risk seems constant Fußzeile

14. Average Return / Standard Dev.Individual Securities, 1994-2003 For various asset classes, a trade-off arises between risk and return. Does the trade-off appear to hold for all individual securities? Fußzeile

15. Average Return / Standard Dev.Individual Securities, 1994-2003 Average Return (%) Wal-Mart Anheuser-Busch American Airlines Archer Daniels Midland Standard Deviation (%) No obvious pattern here !!! Fußzeile

16. Diversification Most individual stock prices show higher volatility than the price volatility of portfolio of all common stocks. How can the standard deviation for individual stocks be higher than the standard deviation of the portfolio? Diversification: investing in many different assets reduces the volatility of the portfolio. The ups and downs of individual stocks partially cancel each other out. Fußzeile

17. AMD AMD + American Airlines AMD + American Airlines + Wal-Mart Unsystematic Risk Portfolio of 11 stocks Systematic Risk 1 2 3 11 Number of Stocks The Impact of Additional Assets on the Risk of a Portfolio Portfolio Standard Deviation Fußzeile

18. Systematic and Unsystematic Risk Diversification reduces portfolio volatility, but only up to a point. Portfolio of all stocks still has a volatility of 21%. Systematic risk: the volatility of the portfolio that cannot be eliminated through diversification. Unsystematic risk: the proportion of risk of individual assets that can be eliminated through diversification What really matters is systematic risk….how a group of assets move together. Fußzeile

19. Standard deviation contains both systematic and unsystematic risk. Because investors can eliminate unsystematic risk through diversification, market rewards only systematic risk. Systematic and Unsystematic Risk Anheuser Busch stock had higher average returns than Archer-Daniels-Midland stock, with smaller volatility. American Airlines had much smaller average returns than Wal-Mart, with similar volatility. The tradeoff between standard deviation and average returns that holds for asset classes does not hold for individual stocks. Fußzeile

20. Risk and Return • Investment performance is measured by total return. • Trade-off between risk and return for assets: historically, stocks had higher returns and volatility than bonds and bills. • One measure of risk: standard deviation (volatility) • Unsystematic and systematic risk: risk that can (cannot) be eliminated through diversification, respectively Fußzeile