Aswath Damodaran 0

THE INVESTMENT PRINCIPLE: RISK

AND RETURN MODELS

“You cannot swing upon a rope that is attached only

to your own belt.”
 First Principles
1

Maximize the value of the business (firm)

The Investment Decision The Financing Decision The Dividend Decision

Invest in assets that earn a Find the right kind of debt If you cannot find investments
return greater than the for your firm and the right that make your minimum
minimum acceptable hurdle mix of debt and equity to acceptable rate, return the cash to
rate fund your operations owners of your business

The hurdle rate The return How much How you choose
should reflect the The optimal The right kind
should reflect the cash you can to return cash to
riskiness of the mix of debt and of debt
magnitude and the return depends the owners will
investment and equity matches the
timing of the upon current & depend on
the mix of debt maximizes firm tenor of your
cashflows as welll potential whether they
and equity used to value assets
as all side effects. investment prefer dividends
fund it. opportunities or buybacks

Aswath Damodaran
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 The notion of a benchmark
2

 Since financial resources are finite, there is a hurdle that

projects have to cross before being deemed acceptable.
This hurdle should be higher for riskier projects than for
safer projects.
 A simple representation of the hurdle rate is as follows:
Hurdle rate = Riskless Rate + Risk Premium
 The two basic questions that every risk and return model
in finance tries to answer are:
🞑 How do you measure risk?
🞑 How do you translate this risk measure into a risk premium?

Aswath Damodaran
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 What is Risk?
3

 Risk, in traditional terms, is viewed as a ‘negative’.

Webster’s dictionary, for instance, defines risk as “exposing
to danger or hazard”. The Chinese symbols for risk,
reproduced below, give a much better description of risk
危机
 The first symbol is the symbol for “danger”, while the second
is the symbol for “opportunity”, making risk a mix of danger
and opportunity. You cannot have one, without the other.
 Risk is therefore neither good nor bad. It is just a fact of life.
The question that businesses have to address is therefore not
whether to avoid risk but how best to incorporate it into their
decision making.
Aswath Damodaran
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 A good risk and return model should…
4

1. It should come up with a measure of risk that applies to all assets

and not be asset-­‐specific.
2. It should clearly delineate what types of risk are rewarded and
what are not, and provide a rationale for the delineation.
3. It should come up with standardized risk measures, i.e., an
investor presented with a risk measure for an individual asset
should be able to draw conclusions about whether the asset is
above-­‐average or below-­‐average risk.
4. It should translate the measure of risk into a rate of return that
the investor should demand as compensation for bearing the
risk.
5. It should work well not only at explaining past returns, but also in
predicting future expected returns.

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I. Measuring Risk

• Investors who buy an asset expect to make a return over the

time horizon hat they will hold the asset. The actual return that
they make over this holding period may by very different from
the expected return, and this is where the risk comes in.
• In addition to the expected return, an investor now has to
consider the following. First, the spread of the actual returns
around the expected return is captured by the variance or
standard deviation of the distribution; the greater the deviation
of the actual returns from expected returns, the greater the
variance. Second, the bias towards positive or negative returns is
captured by the skewness of the distribution. Third, the shape of
the tails of the distribution is measured by the kurtosis of the
distribution; fatter tails lead to higher kurtosis.
Measuring Risk (Cont.)

• In the special case of the normal distribution, returns are

symmetric and investors do not have to worry about
skewness and kurtosis, since there is no skewness and a
normal distribution is defined to have a kurtosis of zero. In
that case, it can be argued that investments can be
measured on only two dimensions - (1) the 'expected
return' on the investment comprises the reward, and (2) the
variance in anticipated returns comprises the risk on the
investment. In this scenario, an investor faced with a choice
between two investments with the same expected return
but different standard deviations, will always pick the one
with the lower standard deviation.
Measuring Risk (Cont.)

• In the more general case, where distributions are neither

symmetric nor normal, it is still conceivable, though unlikely,
that investors still choose between investments on the basis
of only the expected return and the variance, if they
possess utility functions that induce them to do so. It is far
more likely, however, that they prefer positive skewed
distributions to negatively skewed ones, and distributions
with a lower likelihood of jumps (lower kurtosis) over those
with a higher likelihood of jumps (higher kurtosis). In this
world, investors will trade off the good (higher expected
returns and more positive skewness) against the bad (higher
variance and kurtosis) in making investments.
 The Mean-­‐Variance Framework
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 The variance on any investment measures the disparity

between actual and expected returns.
Low Variance Investment

High Variance Investment

Expected Return

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 Do you live in a mean-­‐variance world?
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 Assume that you had to pick between two investments. They

have the same expected return of 15% and the same
standard deviation of 25%; however, investment A offers a
very small possibility that you could quadruple your money,
while investment B’s highest possible payoff is a 60% return.
Would you
a. be indifferent between the two investments, since they have the
same expected return and standard deviation?
b. prefer investment A, because of the possibility of a high payoff?
b. prefer investment B, because it is safer?
 Would your answer change if you were not told that there is
a small possibility that you could lose 100% of your money on
investment A but that your worst case scenario with
investment B is -­‐50%?

Aswath Damodaran
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Risk Assessment: A Behavioral
Perspective
Behavioral finance scholars present three aspects of risk assessment that
are at variance with the men-variance school’s view of risk:
i. Loss aversion: In experiments with human subjects, there is evidence
that individuals are affected far more negatively by a loss than they
are helped by an equivalent gain, and that they generally measure
losses in dollar terms rather than percentage terms.
ii. Familiarity bias: Individuals seem to perceive less risk with
investments that they are familiar with than with unfamiliar
investments. Thus, they see less risk in a domestic company with a
long provenance than they do in an emerging market firm.
iii. Emotional factors: There is an emotional component to risk that
quantitative risk measures cannot capture. This component can have
both a positive affect, where gains accentuate positive affects
(happiness and optimism) and losses feed into negative affects
(worry and anxiety).
II. Rewarded and Unrewarded Risk

Risk, as we have defined it in the previous section,

arises from the deviation of actual returns from
expected returns. This deviation, however, can
occur for any number of reasons, and these
reasons can be classified into two categories -
those that are specific to the investment being
considered (called firm specific risks) and those
that apply across most or all investments (market
risks).
II. Rewarded and Unrewarded Risk

Components of Risk: A portion of the risk will be

eliminated by the firm itself over the course of multiple
investments and another portion by investors as they hold
diversified portfolios.
• Project risk: An individual project may have higher or
lower cash flows than expected, either because the
firm misestimated the cash flows for that project or
because of factors specific to that project.
• Competitive risk: The second source of risk is
competitive risk, whereby the earnings and cash flows
on a project are affected (positively or negatively) by
the actions of competitors.
II. Rewarded and Unrewarded Risk

• Industry-specific risk: The third source of risk is

industry-specific risk –– those factors that impact the
earnings and cash flows of a specific industry. There are
three sources of industry-specific risk. The first is
technology risk, which reflects the effects of
technologies that change or evolve in ways different
from those expected when a project was originally
analyzed. The second source is legal risk, which reflects
the effect of changing laws and regulations. The third is
commodity risk, which reflects the effects of price
changes in commodities and services that are used or
produced disproportionately by a specific industry.
II. Rewarded and Unrewarded Risk

• International risk: A firm faces this type of risk when it

generates revenues or has costs outside its domestic
market. In such cases, the earnings and cash flows will be
affected by unexpected exchange rate movements or by
political developments.
• Market risk: Macroeconomic factors that affect essentially
all companies and all projects, to varying degrees. For
example, changes in interest rates will affect the value of
projects already taken and those yet to be taken both
directly, through the discount rates, and indirectly, through
the cash flows. Other factors that affect all investments
include the term structure, the risk preferences of
investors, inflation, and economic growth.
 Why diversification reduces/eliminates
firm specific risk
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 Firm-­‐specific risk can be reduced, if not eliminated, by

increasing the number of investments in your
portfolio (i.e., by being diversified). Market-­‐wide risk
cannot. This can be justified on either economic or
statistical grounds.
 On economic grounds, diversifying and holding a larger
portfolio eliminates firm-­‐specific risk for two reasons-­‐
a. Each investment is a much smaller percentage of the portfolio,
muting the effect (positive or negative) on the overall
portfolio.
b. Firm-­‐specific actions can be either positive or negative. In a
large portfolio, it is argued, these effects will average out to
zero. (For every firm, where something bad happens, there
will be some other firm, where something good happens.)

Aswath Damodaran
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 The Importance of Diversification: Risk Types
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Figure 3.5: A Break Down of Risk

Competition
may be stronger
or weaker than Exchange rate
anticipated and Political
risk
Projects may
do better or Interest rate,
worse than Entire Sector Inflation &
expected may be news
affected by about
action economy
Firm-specific Market

Actions/Risk that Actions/Risk that

affect only one Affects few Affects many affect all investments
firm firms firms
Firm can Investing in lots Acquiring Diversifying Diversifying Cannot affect
reduce by of projects competitors across sectors across countries
Investors Diversifying across domestic stocks Diversifying globally Diversifying across
can asset classes
mitigate by

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Under Diversification: A Behavioral
Perspective

• The gambling instinct: In some cases, investments are

closer to lottery tickets than to financial investments.
• Over confidence: Investors being over confident in their
own abilities to find winners and thus not diversifying.
• Narrow framing and estimation biases: Investors who
frame their investment decisions narrowly (looking at
pieces of their portfolio rather than the whole) or
misestimate correlations (by assuming that individual
stocks are more highly correlated with each other than
they really are) will hold less diversified portfolios.
 The Role of the Marginal Investor
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 The marginal investor in a firm is the investor who is

most likely to be the buyer or seller on the next trade
and to influence the stock price.
 Generally speaking, the marginal investor in a stock has
to own a lot of stock and also trade that stock on a
regular basis.
 Since trading is required, the largest investor may not be
the marginal investor, especially if he or she is a
founder/manager of the firm (Larry Ellison at Oracle,
Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook)
 In all risk and return models in finance, we assume that
the marginal investor is well diversified.

Aswath Damodaran
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III. Measuring Market Risk

• While most risk and return models in use in corporate

finance agree on the first two step of this process, i.e.,
that risk comes from the distribution of actual returns
around the expected return and that risk should be
measured from the perspective of a marginal investor
who is well diversified, they part ways on how to
measure the non-diversifiable or market risk.
 The Capital Asset Pricing Model
5

1. Uses variance of actual returns around an expected

return as a measure of risk.
2. Specifies that a portion of variance can be diversified
away, and that is only the non-­‐diversifiable portion
that is rewarded.
3. Measures the non-­‐diversifiable risk with beta, which is
standardized around one.
4. Translates beta into expected return -­‐
Expected Return = Riskfree rate + Beta * Risk Premium
5. Works as well as the next best alternative in most
cases.
Aswath Damodaran
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 How risky is Disney? A look at the past…
7

Returns on Disney -­‐ 2008-­‐2013

25.00% Average monthly return = 1.65%
Average monthly standard deviation = 7.64%
20.00% Average annual return = 21.70%
Average annual standard deviation = 26.47%
15.00%

10.00%

5.00%

0.00%

-­‐5.00%

-­‐10.00%

-­‐15.00%

-­‐20.00%

-­‐25.00%
Aug-­‐
Oct-­‐09
09
Dec-­‐
10
Feb-­‐
Apr-­‐10
Jun-­‐10
10
Aug-­‐
Oct-­‐10
10
Dec-­‐
11
Feb-­‐
Apr-­‐11
Jun-­‐11
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Aug-­‐
Oct-­‐11
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Dec-­‐
12
Feb-­‐
Apr-­‐12
Jun-­‐12
12
Aug-­‐
Oct-­‐12
12
Dec-­‐
13
Feb-­‐
Apr-­‐13
Jun-­‐13
13
Aug-­‐
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 Identifying the Marginal Investor in your firm…
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Percent of Stock held Percent of Stock held by Marginal Investor

by Institutions Insiders
High Low Institutional Investor
High High Institutional Investor, with insider influence
Low High (held by Tough to tell; Could be insiders but only if they
founder/manager of firm) trade. If not, it could be individual investors.
Low High (held by wealthy Wealthy individual investor, fairly diversified
individual investor)
Low Low Small individual investor with restricted
diversification

Aswath Damodaran
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Gauging the marginal investor: Disney in
2013

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Extending the assessment of the investor
base
 In all five of the publicly traded companies that we
are looking at, institutions are big holders of the
company’s stock.

Aswath Damodaran
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 The Limiting Case: The Market Portfolio
15

 The big assumptions & the follow up: Assuming diversification

costs nothing (in terms of transactions costs), and that all assets
can be traded, the limit of diversification is to hold a portfolio of
every single asset in the economy (in proportion to market value).
This portfolio is called the market portfolio.
 The consequence: Individual investors will adjust for risk, by
adjusting their allocations to this market portfolio and a riskless
asset (such as a T-­‐Bill):
Preferred risk level Allocation decision
No risk 100% in T-­‐Bills
Some risk 50% in T-­‐Bills; 50% in Market Portfolio;
A little more risk 25% in T-­‐Bills; 75% in Market Portfolio
Even more risk 100% in Market Portfolio
A risk hog.. Borrow money; Invest in market
portfolio

Aswath Damodaran
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 The Risk of an Individual Asset
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 The essence: The risk of any asset is the risk that it adds to
the market portfolio Statistically, this risk can be measured by
how much an asset moves with the market (called the
covariance)
 The measure: Beta is a standardized measure of this
covariance, obtained by dividing the covariance of any asset
with the market by the variance of the market. It is a
measure of the non-­‐diversifiable risk for any asset can be
measured by the covariance of its returns with returns on a
market index, which is defined to be the asset's beta.
 The result: The required return on an investment will be a
linear function of its beta:
🞑 Expected Return = Riskfree Rate+ Beta * (Expected Return on the
Market Portfolio -­‐ Riskfree Rate)

Aswath Damodaran
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 Limitations of the CAPM
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1. The model makes unrealistic assumptions

2.The parameters of the model cannot be estimated
precisely
🞑 The market index used can be wrong.
🞑 The firm may have changed during the 'estimation'
period'
3. The model does not work well
🞑 -­‐ If the model is right, there should be:
 A linear relationship between returns and betas
 The only variable that should explain returns is betas
🞑 -­‐ The reality is that
 The relationship between betas and returns is weak
 Other variables (size, price/book value) seem to
explain differences in returns better.
Aswath Damodaran
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 Alternatives to the CAPM
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Step 1: Defining Risk
The risk in an investment can be measured by the variance in actual returns around an
expected return
Riskless Investment Low Risk Investment High Risk
Investment

E(R) E(R) E(R)

Step 2: Differentiating between Rewarded and Unrewarded Risk
Risk that is specific to investment (Firm Specific) Risk that affects all investments (Market Risk)
Can be diversified away in a diversified portfolio Cannot be diversified away since most assets are
1. each investment is a small proportion of portfolio affected by it.
2. risk averages out across investments in portfolio
The marginal investor is assumed to hold a “diversified” portfolio. Thus, only market risk
will be rewarded and priced.
Step 3: Measuring Market Risk
The CAPM The APM Multi-Factor Models Proxy Models
If there is If there are no arbitrage Since market risk affects In an efficient market,
1. no private information opportunities then the most or all investments, it differences in returns across
2.no transactions cost the market risk of any asset must come from long periods must be due
optimal diversified must be captured by macro economic factors. to market risk differences.
portfolio includes every betas relative to factors Market Risk = Risk Looking for variables
traded asset. Everyone that affect all exposures of any correlated with returns
will hold thismarket investments. Market asset to macro should then give us proxies
portfolio Risk = Risk economic factors. for this risk.
Market Risk = Risk exposures of any Market Risk =
added by any investment asset to market Captured by the
to the market portfolio: factors Proxy Variable(s)

Beta of asset relative to Betas of asset relative Betas of assets relative Equation relating
Market portfolio (from to unspecified market to specified macro returns to proxy
a regression) factors (from a factor economic factors (from variables (from a
analysis) a regression) regression)

Aswath Damodaran
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 Why the CAPM persists…
19

 The CAPM, notwithstanding its many critics and limitations,

has survived as the default model for risk in equity valuation
and corporate finance. The alternative models that have
been presented as better models (APM, Multifactor model..)
have made inroads in performance evaluation but not in
prospective analysis because:
🞑 The alternative models (which are richer) do a much better job than
the CAPM in explaining past return, but their effectiveness drops off
when it comes to estimating expected future returns (because the
models tend to shift and change).
🞑 The alternative models are more complicated and require more
information than the CAPM.
🞑 For most companies, the expected returns you get with the the
alternative models is not different enough to be worth the extra
trouble of estimating four additional betas.

Aswath Damodaran
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 Application Test: Who is the marginal investor
in your firm?
20

 You can get information on insider and institutional

holdings in your firm from:
🞑 http://finance.yahoo.com/
🞑 Enter your company’s symbol and choose profile.

 Looking at the breakdown of stockholders in your

firm, consider whether the marginal investor is
🞑 An institutional investor
🞑 An individual investor

🞑 An insider

Aswath Damodaran
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 First Principles
21

Maximize the value of the business (firm)

The Investment Decision The Financing Decision The Dividend Decision

Invest in assets that earn a Find the right kind of debt If you cannot find investments
return greater than the for your firm and the right that make your minimum
minimum acceptable hurdle mix of debt and equity to acceptable rate, return the cash to
rate fund your operations owners of your business

The hurdle rate The return How much How you choose
should reflect the The optimal The right kind
should reflect the cash you can to return cash to
riskiness of the mix of debt and of debt
magnitude and the return depends the owners will
investment and equity matches the
timing of the upon current & depend on
the mix of debt maximizes firm tenor of your
cashflows as welll potential whether they
and equity used to value assets
as all side effects. investment prefer dividends
fund it. opportunities or buybacks

Aswath Damodaran
21