Category: Alternative Investment Strategy
High vs. low volatility strategies: A different view of risk
When investors think of risk, they usually associate it with volatility. This probably stems from Nobel Prize winning economist Harry Markowitz’s use of volatility in the 1950s and fellow Nobel Prize winner William Sharpe’s use of volatility in creating his self-named method of risk adjusting returns. The lower the volatility of a given investment theoretically indicates that investment carries less risk. Risk, however, could be viewed from a different angle. The impact of a high volatility investment on a portfolio can be mitigated by the allocation size given to that product. By normalizing for volatility, theoretically, high and low volatility investments can have equal impact on a portfolio’s total return. This leads us to a different way to view risk. Risk is the difference between the anticipated worst loss and the realized worst loss.
Scrooge: The Real Story
Most people know Ebenezer Scrooge as the cold-hearted, tight-fisted, “Bah, humbug!” guy from the Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol. But was it really the “happiness of Christmas” that grated on Scrooge’s nerves, or was it something else that caused his foul disposition? Indeed, it wasn’t a lack of status that made Scrooge grumpy. He […]