Equity Risk Premium

See: Risk Premium.

Investing is about risk. And reward. Optimizing the marriage. That's what any boiler room meathead in a Hugo Boss suit will tell you. To be fair, you'll also hear it from business school professors and award-winning economists.

The equity risk premium (it's a number) is a semi-good way to put that old adage into numbers...to make relative calculations as to whether or not that million bucks you're paying to own 1 percent of the flying car company is a good risk-adjusted bet...or not. To start the calculations, you begin with the math of getting a certain return from virtually risk-free assets (like, say, U.S. government bonds). They pay, like...3%? 4%? 5%? Something like that in the modern era.

Then you have the stock market, which is a lot more speculative (or rather, more volatile) than government bonds. Stocks go up and down. Companies go bust. This week's hot biotech stock is next week's subject of an FDA investigation. Hi, Theranos. We're lookin' at you. That stock market risk is then way bigger than U.S. government bond risk. But if you're investing in private companies with no liquid market, then the risks are massively higher.

So how much more do you earn for taking the extra risk of buying private stocks? Or even public ones? That number is called the equity risk premium. It's the added expected return that you get from putting your hard-earned investment funds in more jeopardy by buying equities ("Equity" is another name for stocks or ownership, by the way).

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is risk premium?0 Views

00:00

Finance Allah shmoop What is risk premium No it's not

00:07

This movie in three D risk premium comes from the

00:11

notion that when you invest in pretty much anything other

00:13

than US government debt there is more risk in that

00:16

other investment like even by the bonds of Disney or

00:18

Coke or GOOG or some other behemoth company of those

00:22

bonds carry more risk than US government paper And if

00:25

you bought the stocks I even equities not the bonds

00:28

of one of those beam off cos Well there's way

00:30

more risk Well historically stocks have swung up and down

00:33

violently in short periods over time but over long periods

00:37

of time they've gone up Ah lot Well regardless where

00:40

there is more perceived risk investors will demand more potential

00:44

reward Yeah the key idea here every investment carries more

00:48

risk than US government paper So on top of whatever

00:50

U S Government bonds air yielding investors tag on top

00:54

of them a premium investment return that they require to

00:57

be interested in investing So if say a five year

01:00

U S Government bond is yielding three percent and you're

01:03

looking at investing in bonds backed by a controversial low

01:06

warlord Somalian company Well there's at least some tangible risk

01:11

of bankruptcy there right Well then those bonds will carry

01:13

meaningful E a higher yield than the US government five

01:17

year paper If the risk that the company doesn't pay

01:19

back its bond is modest well then maybe that premiums

01:22

only one percent on top and those five year bonds

01:25

yield in a four percent If the risk is big

01:27

they might have to yield eight or ten or fourteen

01:30

percent or more But those were extremely high rates at

01:33

least these days The market's telling you that the company

01:36

and backing the money already has one foot in the

01:38

grave So now let's go to a completely different way

01:40

of thinking about this extra risk your local diner Think

01:43

of our risk free five year U S Government bonds

01:46

of yielding three percent and being priced like a dinner

01:49

salad which is the cheapest item on the menu right

01:51

here So everything else will cost more than that salad

01:55

crew tones included So then when you're ordering if you

01:59

wanted a burger it's total gross Cost is seven bucks

02:02

But you could also describe that cost to the angry

02:05

waitress or friendly robot as dinner salad plus four bucks

02:09

The premium tacked onto the salad price is four dollars

02:12

for the burger Well risk is priced and described the

02:15

same way there has to be added investment return to

02:18

reflect the added risk to the investor on any given

02:20

deal Be careful though There's inherent risk even if all

02:23

you do is order to the salad Especially if there's

02:26

been a romaine lettuce E Coli warning recently issued by

02:29

the CDC And you do not want to go there 00:02:32.288 --> [endTime] My God

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)