Investment Risk and the Insurance Cycle in the New Millennium," Charles Ruoff brings some very valid points regarding the insurance industry and investment risk to light. The paper is valuable and valid, as it points out the importance of investment diversification to eliminate unnecessary enterprise and asset risk. This paper will further expand upon these concepts and idea. Ruoff points out in his article that there are many situations relative

Risk Management Financial derivatives are an innovation in the field of finance that enable us to understand, measure and manage our financial risks. The definition of financial derivative according to the textbooks is of a financial instrument, and the value of any financial derivative is based on the value or values of the underlying securities or groups of securities that constitute the derivative. It can be said that there have been

measure risk? Risk is a "yin" to the yang of investment, which would be performance. In a nutshell, risk is a deviation from the standard and expected outcome. In other words, let us say there is the expectation that a certain stock will keep soaring. Risk is the perceived or actual probability that this will not happen. The usual tool and metric used to measure risk is standard deviation. Standard

risk and return for an investment portfolio that includes five asset categories: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, and precious metals. The purpose of diversified portfolio investment is to maximize portfolio expected return for a given level of risk, or to minimize risk for a specific level of expected return. This paper reviews mathematical formulae for modeling risk and return which provide a rationale for investment strategies and portfolio management.

Investments are the assets or items purchased with the anticipation to generate the income in the future. In the economic sense, investments refer to the goods and services purchased and not consumed today for the purpose of generating wealth in the future. Similarly, going to a university or building a factory to produce goods and services are the examples of investments. Within a financial environment, investors purchase assets with the

Table of ContentsContentsTable of Contents 1Executive Summary 11. Introduction 12. Asset classes 12.1. Australian Shares (AUD) S&P/ASX 200 12.2. Australian Bonds (AUD) 22.3. US Shares S&P500 22.4. US Federal Funds Rate 22.5. Brent Oil (USD) 24. Efficient portfolios 35. Modern portfolio theory 46. Conclusion and Recommendation 5References 5Appendix 6Appendix 1: Arithmetic & Geometric Mean, Standard Deviation & Variance 6Appendix 2 Correlation Matrix 6Appendix 3: Covariance Matrix 6Appendix 4: Bordered Covariance