INVESTMENTS
Capital allocation between the risky
asset and the risk-free asset
Chapter 3
INVESTMENTS
Capital allocation
? The choice of proportion in safe asset and
proportion in risky asset;
? Most institutional investors follows top-
down analysis---The first part is asset
allocation and the next part is security
selection decision.
INVESTMENTS
Capital allocation across risky and risk-
free portfolios---example
? Total wealth 300,000;
? 90,000 in money market;
? The remaining is in risky assets---113,400
in IBM and 96,600 in GM
? The risky portfolio is 54% in IBM, and
46% in GM;
? The complete portfolio is 30% in risk-free
asset; 70% in risky portfolio.
INVESTMENTS
Portfolio of one risky asset and one risk-
free asset
? Weight in risky portfolio is y, in risk-free
asset is 1-y;
? Return on the risky portfolio is Rp, return on
risky free asset is Rf;
? Suppose
? Portfolio return is
%7%,22%,15)( ===
fpp
RRE σ
fpC
RyyRR )1( ?+=
INVESTMENTS
continued
? The expectation of the portfolio return is
? Standard deviation of the portfolio return is
? We can also write
yy
pC
22== σσ
( ) ( )
)715(7
])([
)1(
?+=
?+=
?+=
y
RREyR
RyRyERE
fpf
fpC
C
fp
p
C
f
fpfC
RRER
RREyRRE
σ
σ
σ
22
8
7
])([
])([)(
+=
?+=
?+=
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Capital allocation line
CAL=capital
allocation line
%22=
p
σ
%8)( =?
fp
RRE
%7=
f
R
%15)( =
p
RE
The figure graphs the investment opportunity set.
INVESTMENTS
Reward-to-variability ratio
? The slope of the graph is called reward-to-
variability ratio:
? Can the reward-to-variability ratio of any
combination of the risky asset and the risk-
free asset be different from the ratio for the
risky asset taken alone, which in this case is
0.36?
22
8
)(
=
?
=
p
fp
RRE
S
σ
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What about if borrowing and lending
rate are different?
CAL=capital
allocation line
%22=
p
σ
%8)( =?
fp
RRE
%7=
f
R
%15)( =
p
RE
The figure graphs the investment opportunity set.
If lending rate is still 7%, but borrowing rate is 9%
%9=
B
f
R
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Passive strategies: the capital market
line
? The CAL is derived with the risky portfolio and
risk-free portfolio;
? When constructing the risky portfolio with no
analysis, we follow a passive investment strategy;
? Usually, the passive risky portfolio is a large
index, for example S&P500;
? We call the CAL provided by one-month T-bills
and a broad index of common stocks the capital
market line(CML).
INVESTMENTS
Risk tolerance and asset allocation
? With utility function
? We choose best allocation to the risky asset,
y , to maximize our utilities.
2
005.0)( σAREU ?=