Financial Concepts（2）: The Risk/Return Tradeoff

从一个权威的网上摘下来的系列文章，请注意加粗的文字和有标记的地方。

 

The risk/return trade off could easily be called the "ability-to-sleep-at-night test."

While some people can handle the equivalent of financial skydiving without batting an eye,

有人看着金融资产价值跳水眼睛都不会眨一下，

others are terrified to climb the financial ladder without a secure harness.

有人却对不系着安全绳去攀岩感到非常恐惧。

 

Deciding what amount of risk you can take while remaining comfortable with your investments is very important.

（根据自身的情况）决定你在投资的时候最多能承受多大的风险至关重要。

 

In the investing world, the dictionary definition of risk is

the chance that an investment's actual return will be different than expected.

在投资的世界中，实际收益与预期收益之间的差（这个差值可正、可负、可为0），就是风险。风险并不代表损失。

Technically, this is measured in statistics by standard deviation（风险可以用收益率的标准差来衡量）.

Risk means you have the possibility of losing some, or even all, of your original investment.

风险意味着你在投资过程中可能会损失一些东西，甚至变得一无所有。

比如悲壮的潘老板，半个小时爆仓，一无所有，一贫如洗，我的偶像评论其操作“很魔幻”。

Low levels of uncertainty(low risk) are associated with low potential returns.

High levels of uncertainty(high risk) are associated with high potential returns.

The risk/return trade off is the balance between the desire for the lowest possible risk and the highest possible return.

This is demonstrated graphically in the chart below. A higher standard deviation means a higher risk and higher possiblereturn.

更大的标准差风险意味着高风险，和一份潜在的高回报（并不是一定的！）。

 

A common misconception is that higher risk equals greater return.

一个经常容易犯的错误是，高风险意味着高回报。上文说的是“潜在的”高回报。

The risk/return trade off tells us that the higher risk gives us the possibility（可能的）of higher returns.

There are no guarantees（但并不能保证一定有汇报）.

Just as risk means higher potential returns, it also means higher potential losses（它同样暗示着一种更大的潜在的损失！）.

On the lower end of the scale, the risk-free rate of return（无风险收益）is represented by there turn on U.S. Government Securities（国债，金边债券）

because their chance of default is next to nothing（n2n，几乎没有。国家违约的情况几乎没有）

因为国家可以征税，发行货币。国家的三驾金融马车，征税、发债、印钞。）

If the risk-free rate is currently 6%, this means, with virtually no risk, we can earn 6% per year on our money.

rf意味着，如果你购买国债，你的钱一定可以按每年rf的速度增值，这是货币时间价值。

请参考前面的博文：货币时间价值

The common question arises: who wants to earn 6% when index funds average 12% per year over the long run?

那么问题来了，长期来看，既然指数基金平均年化收益是12%，谁会只想要那个6%呢？

The answer to this is that even the entire market (represented by the index fund) carries risk.

这是因为整个市场都存在着风险。

The return on index funds is not 12% every year, 市场回报并不是每年都是12%，

but rather -5% one year, 25% the next year, and soon. 可能是第一年-5%，第二年25%……

An investor still faces substantially greater risk and volatility to get an overall return that is higher than a predictable government security.

投资者为了得到比确定的、可预知的国债收益更高的收益，将持续面临更大的风险和金融资产的波动。

We call this additional return the risk premium, which in this case is 6% (12% - 6%). 

这种“超额回报”叫做风险溢价。注意，超额回报也并不总是正的。比如，第一年的超额收益就是 (-5 - 6)% = -11%

定义：return - risk_free_return--> risk premium

Determining what risk level is most appropriate for you isn't an easy question to answer.

Risk tolerance differs from person to person.

Your decision will depend on your goals, income and personal situation, among other factors.

想确定哪种投资风险等级最适合你很难。每个人对风险的承受能力都有差异。

每个人的风险容忍度，是由投资预期目标、收入来源、个人处境及其他因素共同决定的。

牢记一句话，市场有风险！！！请不要追求暴利！请理性地投资！