Maurice Taylor, CFA, FRM, is responsible for managing risk in his firm's commodity portfolios. Taylor has extensive experience in the risk management field and as a result has been appointed the task of mentoring entry-level employees. Steven Jacobs is a newly hired Financial Analyst who has been assigned to research the company's risk management process. To verify the accuracy of his findings he consults Taylor. Taylor agrees to thoroughly review Jacobs* findings and volunteers to contribute his knowledge to enhance any part of the report that mentions Taylor's department.
A week later Jacobs, submits his report to his supervisor without reading Taylor's suggestions. Some excerpts from the report are as follows;
• "Many portfolio managers use a ratio that compares the average alpha to the standard deviation of alpha to measure risk-adjusted performance. This ratio can be used to rank their ability to generate excess returns on a consistent basis."
"The main difference between risk governance and risk budgeting is that risk governance is concerned with policies and standards, whereas risk budgeting is concerned with allocating risk."
• "In an ERM system individual portfolio managers are charged with measuring, managing, and monitoring their portfolio risk as well as determining their optimal amount of capital at risk. With this information upper management gains a better overall picture of the firm's risk."
• "The two general categories of risk are financial and non-financial risks. Financial risks include market risk and credit risk. Non-financial risks include settlement risk, regulatory risk, model risk, liquidity risk, operations risk, and political risk."
Jacobs' supervisor thanks him for the report and assigns him the next task of researching the firm's VAR calculation methodologies. His supervisor is wondering if the firm should switch to the Monte Carlo Method from the Historical Method. Jacobs again decides to consult Taylor for his expertise. Taylor agrees that using the Monte Carlo Method would be useful since it incorporates returns distributions rather than single point estimates of risk and return- This may be appropriate for Taylor's portfolios since commodity returns can exhibit skewed distributions. Taylor, however, informs Jacobs that there are also advantages to using historical VAR including that it is based on modern portfolio theory (MPT).
Jacobs uses the firm's small cap value portfolio to illustrate the calculation of VAR. The value of the portfolio is $140 million and it has an annual expected return of 12.10%. The annual standard deviation of returns is 18.20%. Assuming a standard normal distribution, 5% of the potential portfolio values are more than 1.65 standard deviations below the expected return.
Jacobs completes his research report on VAR by adding an appendix section on extensions of VAR. He states that one extension that can be particularly valuable in risk management measures the impact of a single asset on the portfolio VAR. This measure captures the effects of the correlations of the individual assets on the overall portfolio VAR.
In the Appendix to his research report, the extension to VAR that Jacobs describes is most likely:
- portfolio VAR.
- incremental VAR.
- correlation VAR.
Answer(s): B
Explanation:
Incremental VAR (IVAR) is used to measure the impact of a single asset on the portfolio VAR. By measuring the VAR of the portfolio with and without the asset, IVAR captures the effects of the correlations of the individual assets on the overall portfolio VAR. (Study Session 14, LOS 40.g)
Sample Scoring Key: 3 points for each correct response.
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