RISK MANAGEMENT

Risk Management

Risk Management

Part 1

Introduction

Portfolio theory founded by Markowtz (1952) is a revolutionary theory changed finance profession from 'arts' to 'science'. It gives direction of how to minimize risk at a given return or maximize return at a given return. A portfolio is a bundle of assets with different levels of return and risk. The constituent assets are combined with relative weights. Portfolio theory studies how the characteristics (e.g. risk and come back) of asset combination differ from those of its constituent assets. The term 'diversification' derived from the theory becomes standard strategy for investment circles. Risk in Finance is the uncertainty in the future, which means that there are different possible outcomes in the future.

Finance basically deals with risk and expected return. Portfolio is one of the important factors of Finance. Certain amount of money invested in different assets like bond stocks or securities makes a portfolio of investments. This portfolio is about how can we reduce the risk and make better return through diversification. We have to create our portfolio that should have the mixture of both risk free and risky assets. Risk free assets are the bonds issued by government and some financial institutions, like Treasury bills, some bonds certified by government and so on. On the other hand most of the bonds; stocks are considered as risky assets. Returns of the risky assets depend on economical situation. There may be 3 kinds of situation in the economy like recession, normal and boom. Risk free assets always give the same return in all the situation of economy. On the other hand risky assets give different rate of return in different economic situations. So in different types of situation we will get different types of return, then here comes the risk of the assets. So we have to deal with those 2 types of assets to create our portfolio to minimize risk and maximize the return.

Portfolio Management:

By selecting securities that have little relationship with each other, an investor is able to reduce relevant risk. Diversification, combining securities in a way that will reduce relevant risk.

The decision to invest excess cash in marketable securities involves not only the amount to invest but also the type of securitises to invest. To some span, the two conclusions are interdependent. Both should be founded on an evaluation of anticipated net money flows and the doubt affiliated with these money flows. In future cash flow patterns are known with reasonable certainty and the yield curve is upward sloping in the sense of long-term securities yielding more than shorter-term ones, a company may wish to arrange its portfolio so that securities will mature approximately when the funds will be needed. Such a cash-flow pattern gives the firm a great deal of flexibility in maximizing the average return on the entire portfolio, for it is unlikely that significant amounts of securities will have to be sold unexpectedly.

Types of Investors

There are distinct kinds of investors. So we have to create the portfolio according to the state of ...