While most other investors are preoccupied with how much money they can make and not at all with how much they may lose, value investors focus on risk as well as return.
Most investors seem confused about risk.
Some insist that risk and return are ALWAYS positively correlated, the greater the risk, the greater the return. This is in fact, a basic tenet of the capital-asset-pricing model taught in nearly all business schools, yet it is not always true.
Others mistakenly equate risk with volatility, emphasizing the "risk" of security price fluctuations while ignoring the risk of making overpriced, ill-conceived, or poorly managed investments.
A positive correlation between risk and return would hold consistently only in an efficient market.
In inefficient markets it is possible to find investments offering high returns with low risk. These arise
It is also common place to discover high risk investments offering low returns.
Risk and return must be assessed independently for every investment.
Since the financial markets are inefficient a good deal of the time, investors cannot simply select a level of risk and be confident that it will be reflected in the accompanying returns.
Risk and return must instead be assessed independently for every investment.
In point of fact, greater risk does not guarantee greater return.
By itself risk does not create incremental return, only price can accomplish that.
Most investors seem confused about risk.
Some insist that risk and return are ALWAYS positively correlated, the greater the risk, the greater the return. This is in fact, a basic tenet of the capital-asset-pricing model taught in nearly all business schools, yet it is not always true.
Others mistakenly equate risk with volatility, emphasizing the "risk" of security price fluctuations while ignoring the risk of making overpriced, ill-conceived, or poorly managed investments.
A positive correlation between risk and return would hold consistently only in an efficient market.
- Any disparities would be immediately corrected; this is what would make the market efficient.
In inefficient markets it is possible to find investments offering high returns with low risk. These arise
- when information is not widely available,
- when an investment is particularly complicated to analyze, or
- when investors buy and sell for reasons unrelated to value.
It is also common place to discover high risk investments offering low returns.
- Overpriced and therefore risky investments are often available because the financial markets are biased toward overvaluation and because it is difficult for market forces to correct an overvalued condition if enough speculators persist in overpaying.
- Also, unscrupulous operators will always make overpriced investments available to anyone willing to buy; they are not legally required to sell at a fair price.
Risk and return must be assessed independently for every investment.
Since the financial markets are inefficient a good deal of the time, investors cannot simply select a level of risk and be confident that it will be reflected in the accompanying returns.
Risk and return must instead be assessed independently for every investment.
In point of fact, greater risk does not guarantee greater return.
- To the contrary, risk erodes return by causing losses.
- It is only when investor shun high-risk investments, thereby depressing their prices, that an incremental return can be earned which more than fully compensates for the risk incurred.
By itself risk does not create incremental return, only price can accomplish that.
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