In: Finance
Fund A offer an expected return of 8% with a standard deviation of 15%, and Fund B offers an
expected return of 5% with a standard deviation of 25%.
a. Would Fund B be held by investors?Explainwith the aid of a diagram using Markowitz Portfoliotheory.(8marks)
b. How would you answer part a. if the correlation coefficient between Funds A and B were 1? Could these expected returnsand standard deviationsrepresent an equilibrium in the market?(12marks)
Answer:
(a) Fund A:
Expected Return = 8%
Standard Deviation (risk)= 15%
Fund B:
Expected Return = 5%
Standard Deviation (risk) = 25%
Since, the Fund A offers higher return at a lower risk as compared
to the Fund B which offers lower return and more risk. Therefore,
the Fund B should not be held by the investors.
(b) If the correlation of coeeficient between Fund A and Fund B is 1, it reflects that A & B have perfect positive correlation between them.
[Since, the weights are not given, therefore, we have assumed weights to be 0.50 for each fund]
Therefore, the risk of the portfolio = weighted average of the
risk = 0.50*15 + 0.50*25 = 20%
And expected return of the portfolio = weighted average of returns
= 0.50*8 + 0.50*5 = 6.5%
This portfolio has lower returns and higher risk as compared to
the Fund A. Therefore, Fund A is preferrable to the
investor.