Risk Aversion

  

Categories: Managed Funds

A bias that leads to people taking the “sure path” over the “risky-yet-can-pay-off-big-time path.”

The reason? Risk can certainly pay off, but it might not. Playing it safe, however, can avoid the nasty things that no one likes, including stares of contempt from a spouse. Risk aversion causes us to stay in a job that we hate, rather than attempting to start a business where we’re the boss. The business may eventually pay off with fame and fortune, but it may not. The job we hate will at least provide a paycheck and keep the evil bill collectors off our backs.

Risk aversion has a flip side, like the Force. People tend to take increased risks to prevent loss.

Does this sound familiar? It somewhat becomes an escalation of commitment. It’s also indicative of people who need Gambler’s Anonymous. For example, a person who takes $500 to the casino and loses it all...may not want to go home empty-handed and tell the family that they can’t afford to go on vacation during Spring Break. As a result, he goes to the ATM, and takes out another $500 and plays with that…and loses, blowing next year’s Spring Break, too. Now he gets to go home and explain that the next two Spring Breaks will be spent watching reruns on Netflix, because he couldn’t stop gambling.

Point to remember: risk aversion can either be a fear of trying something that might seem crazy for a nice reward...or doing something crazy to avoid loss.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is a Risk Profile?0 Views

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Finance allah shmoop what is a risk profile Hello You

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know that song Hello By adele You know you've heard

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it like eight thousand times Hello How are you Yeah

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So think of the you today wondering whether you should

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loan money to the you of ten years ago Hello

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with you How much And on what terms What details

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would you have wanted to glean before you wrote the

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check for your hard earned money to risk being fully

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lost on the flaky you of ten years ago Okay

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so dialing it back here the key vocab words you

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must know the key components to a bond The principle

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it's the base amount of a bond loan that dollar

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amount that is loaned before interest and fees or commissions

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or taxes or anything else in the world of corporate

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bonds and most government bonds The base amount is usually

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in multiples of a thousand bucks And for larger accounts

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it's five thousand bucks And these air called bond denominations

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of thousand dollars Five thousand dollars Ten thousand a hundred

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thousand All denominations you know like a denomination for best

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bond in a short film category goes to the t

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bill the principal in a mortgage style bond is the

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amount the bank is loaning Use you khun by your

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three bedroom picket fence quarter acre house with you know

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basement dungeon dream home fifty shades of home If you

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put one hundred grand down and borrowed four hundred thousand

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dollars is your mortgage from the bank to pay five

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hundred thousand dollars for the dream home of your life

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Your loan principal is yes four hundred thousand dollars Well

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in most bond scenarios the principle can be and is

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bought in sold just like any other security So in

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the case of the you loaning money teo you let's

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say the older you realize is that you take too

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much risk in life You followed your dreams Try to

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become a rock star rather than listening to your nightmares

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Age forty homeless and broke That's how you ended up

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trying to say so The older you cells that bond

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to someone else who doesn't mind your maniacal focus on

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head banging metal band practice or at least unlike the

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older you doesn't view that as a fundamental risk in

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them Paying back the money they borrowed Well bonjour typically

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issued in these thousand dollars base units or their par

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value or face value but they're quoted in units of

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one hundred go figure that is a bond Units selling

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for one thousand twenty five dollars would be quoted as

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one oh two and a half and when you buy

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the bond you pay one hundred three cents on the

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dollar The cellar of a bond gets one oh two

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and a half cents on the dollar in the fifty

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cents goes to the agent there Got it And i

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get really technical Bonds are usually quoted as a spread

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like this like a play bond issue Here's mr november

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That is one oh two and a half by one

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of three which means that if you're the buyer of

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the bond you pay one hundred three cents on the

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dollar And if you're the seller of the bond you

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get one hundred two and a half cents on the

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dollar That's spread which pays the person making the market

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in the bonds or the broker is one Oh three

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Oh minus one o two Five equals yet five bucks

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so when you do buy a bond you'll buy it

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in one of two ways Well in the olden days

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there were a lot of bearer bonds meaning the bearer

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or the person who had the bond in their possession

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like in their wallet owned it like a bill like

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a paper bill Basically back then you could carry around

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bonds just like they were cash and there was no

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trail in the same way There's really no trail on

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a twenty dollar bill you just downloaded from aversa teller

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a tm nonunion robot But because barry bonds are really

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not the best thing to be carrying around folded in

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your wallet the trend quickly became to issue new bonds

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as registered mainly so that they could be held elektronik

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lee and save the murder of millions of trees and

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or sheep Today most bonds don't even carry a p

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paper attributes Rather the buyer gets an email more or

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less with a bond registration number and those bonds are

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usually held inside of the buyers mutual fund or hedge

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fund Or if it's a consumer buying the bond and

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number just shows up in their fidelity Schwab betrayed or

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other online brokerage account So today bonds don't get a

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certificate there issued in book entry form Well the transfer

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agents just keep elektronik records of the bonds and their

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little scriven er's ledgers The names and addresses and data

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of the buyer and seller are copiously stored but there's

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no subsequent paper paperwork that goes along with it And

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all of this is really cool to now be elektronik

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But back in the day bonds were actually printed and

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some of the artwork was actually pretty cool Note that

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it's par value is ten thousand bucks and it has

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really pretty borders Ok next big element of a bond

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is the nominal rate nominal It means in name So

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on the face of the bond certificate there will be

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a named interest rate Take a look at this bond

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right here jonathan do Well here's the nominal or face

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amount and it says four percent So this piece paper

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backed by the company solar city now owned by tesla's

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pays four percent interest Let's pretend the bonds a thousand

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dollars unit well That means the registered owner of this

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bond is due to be paid twenty bucks twice a

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year or forty dollars a year as interest payment on

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that thousand dollars they're renting So the quick summary you

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buy a bond for twenty five thousand dollars that pays

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eight percent a year and see how we're changing this

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up on you to make life difficult The principal's twenty

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five grand The interest payment is two grand a year

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or a thousand dollars every six months because that's how

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bond's role They pay interest twice a year The nominal

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rate of the bond maybe eight percent But if you

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had to pay a premium of say thirty grand instead

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of twenty five grand for that quote eight percent paper

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unquote Well then you won't actually be getting an eight

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percent return on the thirty grand you invested You'll still

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get the two grand a year which is to over

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thirty or about a six point seven percent return If

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you really want to feel connected with dead bad grandpa

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well you can try to find barry bonds which are

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like hold ten thousand dollar bills But you'll have a

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whole lot more luck finding a wide selection of funds

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in the registered isle of the bond grocery storage Schwab's

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good stuff Get the sauce

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