Value at Risk
-Introduction
As Walter Wriston, former chairman of Citigroup, said “All of life is the management of risk, not its elimination” and nowadays modern banking is about controlling risk and returns. The ability of a financial institution to control risk is a key factor that determines its success or its failure in markets. As the late financial crisis has demonstrated institutions that were not properly prepared to face the crisis, failed and they were either bailed out by governments or serve economists as bad example. This is the reason risk management is an important field of every financial institution.
-Risk and types of Financial Risk
As Philippe Jorion (2007) mentions a definition for risk can be the volatility of unanticipated outcomes and can be created by natural disasters, such as the recent earthquake in Japan that is reported to cause a drop of 3% of the oil price in the first few days after it, or it can created by human activities such as technological innovation which might create unemployment. Phillip Best (1998) argues that risk matters only when it causes financial losses and financial risk is the one linked with financial assets and portfolios and is classified in broader categories; market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk and operational risk. There is evidence that these types of risk can affect one another. Market risk is the one linked with the movements of the price level of market. Credit risk is generated when parties involved in an economic contract are either incapable or reluctant to satisfy their commitments. Jorion (2007) classifies liquidity risk into two forms; asset liquidity risk and funding liquidity risk. Jorion (2007, p. 23):
Asset liquidity risk…arises when a transaction can...
... middle of paper ...
... effects than those expected. Nevertheless VaR is always a statistical tool, meaning that if using VaR is estimated a loss of £10 millions in one month, it is known that there might be months with smaller losses and months with larger than £10 millions. There is also the problem of identifying the right method because each method has its own strengths and weaknesses.
So it is important for a risk manager to be able to identify the key factors of the market. These can be market rates and prices that can affect the portfolio and the necessity of this derives from the fact that without these factors is impossible to build a proper quantitative measure of market risk, due to the complexity of financial markets. So to start properly one has to recognize the instruments through which market risk factors will be embodied, such instruments may be options, swaps or loans.
Similar to what the article states, we have seen that risk is something that can go wrong, which we are unaware until a crisis happens. Many people tend to ignore the short tails of distribution saying they don't matter because there's a low possibility that it will occur. Think back to one such “perfect storm” that happened back in ...
In addition, the Federal Reserve did badly on supervision of the financial market. Many banks did not have enough ability to value their risk. The Federal Reserve and other supervision institution should require these banks to enhance their ability of risk valuing.
The presence of systemic risk in the current United States financial system is undeniable. Systemic risks exist when the failure of one firm may topple others and destabilize the entire financial system. The firm is then "too big to fail," or perhaps more precisely, "too interconnected to fail.” The Federal Stability Oversight Council is charged with identifying systemic risks and gaps in regulation, making recommendations to regulators to address threats to financial stability, and promoting market discipline by eliminating the expectation that the US federal government will come to the assistance of firms in financial distress. Systemic risks can come through multiple forms, including counterparty risk on other financial ...
Obviously, financial establishments can endure breathtaking misfortunes notwithstanding when their risk management is top notch. They are, all things considered, in the matter of going out on a limb. At the point when risk management fails, be that as it may, it is in one of the many fundamental ways, almost every one of them exemplified in the present emergency. In some cases, the issue lies with the information or measures that risk directors depend on. At times it identifies with how they recognize and impart the risks an organization is presented to. Financial risk management is difficult to get right in the best of times.
Market Risk is also known as Systematic Risk due to its broad impact on investments. The level of Market Risk depends on the probability that the entire market will decline and drag down the values of all companies. With Market Risk, investors stand to lose value irrespective of the companies, business sectors, or investment vehicles they are invested in. It can be difficult for investors to protect themselves against market risk, since investment strategies, like diversification, is mostly ineffective (Investopedia,
In your response, build upon extant portfolio theory and make sure to talk about different types of risks that investors might face and how they go about managing such risks. This means you need to consider topics such as efficient frontier and optimal portfolios; as well their relevance to investment theory. Furthermore, given the nature of the assignment, avoid bringing the brokerage industry into your discussion. In other words, assume you can invest directly in the stock market and do not need any financial intermediaries like brokerage houses.
Finance theory does not provide a complete framework for explaining risk management under the fluctuated financial environment in which firm operates. Hence, for corporate managers, they rank risk management as one of their top priorities. One of the strategies to reduce risk is by hedging. This paper will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of hedging risk using financial derivatives.
Asset allocation decisions made by an investor are considered more important than other decisions such as market timing or security selection. In the research provided by Hensel (1991), performance attribution is one of the main components when choosing the right assets in a portfolio. The impact of any investment decision can be measured by comparing its outcome with the outcome of some alternative decision. Furthermore, according to Hensel (1991), every investor has to incorporate the minimum-risk portfolio, which is a combination of securities or asset classes that reduces the uncertainty of future portfolio returns to a minimum.
Risk compiles two concepts: the frequency of an event and the severity of that same event. When the frequency of an event is estimated, it is on how often an event has occurred or is likely to occur. With that being said there are two types of frequency: high and low. High frequency means something will probably occur in most circumstances. Low frequency means something might occur at some time.
Primarily, financial managers look at the market price in maximizing the value of the firm. The market value is the present value of the net cash flow divided buy the risk. Investors consider the firm’s future and present earnings, disadvantages or risks and other factors that will influence a firm prior to deciding to create an investment decision and the market price of the stock that will reflect all the information considering these factors (Arain, 2011).
Operational risks are risks that may occur in the day to day activities, which may involve the process, systems, or people. Strategic risks are those risks involved with strategy. Positioning ones’ company with the right alliances and competing with fare prices will help affect future operational decisions. Compliance risks involve the many legislations and regulations a company must follow. The results could lead to high penalties and a company’s reputation could take a hit. Lastly, financial risks are always being monitored because oil, fuel, and currency rates are constantly fluctuating. By monitoring the fluctuating rates determines fare cost and balancing of the budget. “Like in any other industry, the risk exposure quantifies the amount of loss that might occur from any particular activity” (Genovese,
Ward (2005) points out that different people have different viewpoints about risks and uncertainties. Some people point out that risk not only can increase an uncertainty thereby causing the difficulty of adverse effect but also can create the higher level of uncertainty thus resulting in the increase in the complexity. In terms of uncertainty, it can be classified into tw...
As has been discussed before, risk identification plays an important part in the risk such as unique, subjective, complex and uncertainly. There are no two identical leaves in the world; similar, there are no two exactly the same risk either. Hence the best risk manger could not identify risk completely. Besides, risk identification assessment is done by risk analysts. As the different level of risk management knowledge, practical experience and other aspects between individuals, the result of risk identification may be difference. Furthermore, the process of identifying risk is still risky. Once risks have been identified, corporations have to take actions on limiting risky actions to reduce the frequency and severity of risky. They have to think about any lost profit from limiting distribution of risky action. So reducing risk identification risk is one of assessments in the risk
Risk management is a process used in all industries to reduce the risk. The Risk management tool usage changes from sector to sector and hence each sector has developed their own risk management tools and methodologies to mitigate the risk. But the concept remains the same behind all the tools (Ropel, 2011). The main steps for risk management irrespective of the sector are:
This paper will define and discuss five financial theories and how they impact business decisions made by financial managers. The theories will be the Modern Portfolio Theory, Tobin Separation Theorem, Equilibrium Theory, Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.