In: Finance
Explain how to assess stand-alone risk vs. corporate risk between projects (standard deviation vs coefficient of variation)
The measure of stated-alone risk is standard deviation which is an absolute measure of dispersion
Standard deviation = √ [∑ (specific return – expected return) ^2/ (n-1)]
Where, n is sample size
The coefficient of variation is relative risk measure and it is a simple measure of risk and reward ratio
Coefficient of Variation (CV) = Standard Deviation of Returns/ Expected Average Rate of Return
For evaluating the corporate risk; the coefficient of variation (CV) is a better measure of risk than the standard deviation (SD) because the coefficient of variation adjusts for the size of the project as it is relative measures of dispersion while the standard deviation is an absolute measure of dispersion.