As the number of assets in the portfolio increases, note how the number of covariance terms in the...

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Suppose a portfolio is composed of asset weights wi. Writing the mean and standard deviation of the individual assets and the portfolio as: μi, σi, μPortfolio, σPortfolio. We get:

2211 wwPortfolio

n

iiiPortfolio w

1

122122

22

21

21

2 2 wwwwPortfolio

21121122

21

21

21

2 )1(2)1( wwwwPortfolio

n

i ijjiijji

n

iiiPortfolio www

11

222

As the number of assets in the portfolio increases, note how the number of covariance terms in the expansion increases as the square of the number of variance terms

σ11 σ21 σ31 σ41 σ51 σ12 σ22 σ32 σ42 σ52 σ13 σ23 σ33 σ43 σ53 σ14 σ24 σ34 σ44 σ54 σ15 σ25 σ35 σ45 σ55

Standard

deviation

No. of shares in portfolio

Diversifiable / idiosyncratic risk

Systematic risk

20

40 1 2 ...

As we add additional assets, we can lower overall risk.

Lowest achievable risk is termed “systematic”, “non-diversifiable” or “market” risk

Lowest risk with n assets

Actual expected portfolio variance from portfolios of different sizes, NYSE

0

10

20

30

40

50

1 10 100 1000

No. of stocks in portfolio

Exp

ecte

d po

rtfo

lio v

aria

nce

Percentage of risk on an individual security that can be eliminated by holding a random portfolio of stocks

US 73

UK 65

FR 67

DE 56

IT 60

BE 80CH 56NE 76International 89

Source: Elton et al. Modern Portfolio Theory

Add assets…especially with low correlations

• Even without low correlations, you lower variance as long as not perfectly correlated

• Low, zero, or (best) negative correlations help lower variance best

• An individual asset’s total variance doesn’t much affect the risk of a well-diversified portfolio

Change in portfolio variance by adding a small amount of a new asset 2

is 121222

2

2

22 ww

wP

which is close to 1212 w if w2 is small.

Some simple cases: if 0 < w1 < 1 Suppose 21 and 21

Then Portfolio and 222

2122121

2 )2( wwwwPortfolio

(Proof 1)(22 2

212221

21

221221

21 wwwwwwwwww )

Some simple cases (2) If ρij=0, and wi=1/n, then the variance of the portfolio is

n

iiPortfolio n 1

22

2 1

and if all the σi are equal, then

nPortfolio

22

Some simple cases (3) If 02 riskfree return, Then

21

21

2 wPortfolio or 11 wPortfolio

Standard deviation of a portfolio mixing a riskfree and a risky asset is proportionate to the share of the risky asset in the portfolio

The value of w that minimizes portfolio variance

211222

221

22 )1(2)1( wwwwPortfolio

can be obtained by differentiating this expression with respect to w and setting the result to zero, to get

122122

21

122122

w .

But are we compromising on return?

Building the efficient frontier: combining two assets in different

proportions

0

5

10

15

20

25

0 5 10 15 20 25Standard deviation

Exp

ecte

d r

etu

rn (

%)

1, 0

0, 1

0.5, 0.5

0.75, 0.25

Standard

deviation

Mean return

Risk and return reduced through diversification

0

5

10

15

20

25

0 10 20 30

Std. dev.

Exp

ecte

d r

etu

rn (

%)

= - 0.5

= +1

= - 1 = +0.5

= 0

Mean return

Standard

deviation

Efficient frontier of risky assets

μp

p

x

x

x

x

x

x

xx

xx

xx

x

x

xxB

A

C

Capital Market Line and market portfolio (M)

Capital Market Line=Tangent from risk-free rate

to efficient frontier

rf

A

B

M

μm - rf

m

μ

μm

So far we said nothing about preferences!

Individual preferences

μp

p

AB

ZERp

I2 I1

I2 > I1

Y

Mean return

Standard deviation

Capital Market Line and market portfolio (M)

r

A

B

M

μm - r

m

μ

μm

IA

Investor A reaches most preferred M-V combination by holding some of the risk-free asset and the rest in the market portfolio M giving position A

Capital Market Line and market portfolio (M)

r

A

B

M

μm - r

m

μ

μm

IB

B is less risk averse than A. Chooses a point that requires borrowing some money and investing everything in the market portfolio

Mean and standard deviation of daily returnsJan 18-24, 2008

Nikkei

Eurofirst

Average

FTSE

S&P

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

0 1 2 3 4 5

Standard deviation

Mea

n

Mean and standard deviation of daily returnsJan 18-24, 2008

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

0 1 2 3 4 5

Standard deviation

Mea

n

FTSE and S&P

Mean and standard deviation of daily returnsJan 18-24, 2008

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

0 1 2 3 4 5

Standard deviation

Mea

n

Eurofirst and S&P

Mean and standard deviation of daily returnsJan 18-24, 2008

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

0 1 2 3 4 5

Standard deviation

Mea

n

Nikkei & FTSE

Some lessons from our toy exercise for daily returns

• It’s laborious to compute the efficient set• Curvature is not that great except for negatively

correlated assets• We “know” that these means and covariances

are going to be bad estimates of next weeks process…so how stable do we think asset returns are generally…. …is it just a question of longer samples

or do covariances etc change over time?

Issues in using covariance matrix for portfolio decisions

• Expected returns are very volatile – past not a good guide

• Covariances also volatile, but less so• If we try to estimate covariances from past data

– (i) we need a lot of them (almost n2/2 for n assets) – (ii) lots of noise in the estimation

• But a simplifying model seems to fit well:

The market model

titMiiti RR ,,,

What assumption on ti , ?

For the “single index” model we assume that the residual is uncorrelated across assets

Risk and covariance in the single index model: …for assets i and j

2222

iMii 2Mjiij

The covariance between assets comes only through their relationship to the market portfolio Proof (next slide)

Proof: iiiiij RRRR

= mjjjmjjmiiimii RRRR

= jmmjimmi RRRR )()(

= jimmijmmjimmji RRRRRR )()()( 2

= 2Mji + 0 + 0 + 0 (using assumptions (i), (ii) and (iii)

Risk and covariance in the single index model: …for an equally-weighted portfolio of n assets

222MPP

where

i

iP n 1

What is β?

Could get it from past historic patterns(though experience shows these are not stable and tend

to revert to mean…

…adjustments possible (Blume, Vasicek)

Could project it from asset characteristics (e.g. if no market history)

Dividend payout rate, asset growth, leverage, liquidity, size (total assets), earnings variability

Why use single index model?

(Instead of projecting full matrix of covariances)

1. Less information requirements

2. It fits better!

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