Definition of Portfolio Diversification

Portfolio Diversification

See diversification

Active portfolio strategy

A strategy that uses available information and forecasting techniques to seek a
better performance than a portfolio that is simply diversified broadly. Related: passive portfolio strategy

Complete portfolio

The entire portfolio, including risky and risk-free assets.

Dedicating a portfolio

Related: cash flow matching.

Diversification

Dividing investment funds among a variety of securities with different risk, reward, and
correlation statistics so as to minimize unsystematic risk.

Efficient diversification

The organizing principle of modern portfolio theory, which maintains that any riskaverse
investor will search for the highest expected return for any level of portfolio risk.

Efficient portfolio

A portfolio that provides the greatest expected return for a given level of risk (i.e. standard
deviation), or equivalently, the lowest risk for a given expected return.
Efficient set Graph representing a set of portfolios that maximize expected return at each level of portfolio
risk.

Excess return on the market portfolio

The difference between the return on the market portfolio and the
riskless rate.

Factor portfolio

A well-diversified portfolio constructed to have a beta of 1.0 on one factor and a beta of
zero on any other factors.

Feasible portfolio

A portfolio that an investor can construct given the assets available.

Feasible set of portfolios

The collection of all feasible portfolios.

Hedged portfolio

A portfolio consisting of the long position in the stock and the short position in the call
option, so as to be riskless and produce a return that equals the risk-free interest rate.

International diversification

The attempt to reduce risk by investing in the more than one nation. By
diversifying across nations whose economic cycles are not perfectly correlated, investors can typically reduce
the variability of their returns.

Leveraged portfolio

A portfolio that includes risky assets purchased with funds borrowed.

Liquidity diversification

Investing in a variety of maturities to reduce the price risk to which holding long
bonds exposes the investor.

Leveraged portfolio

A portfolio that includes risky assets purchased with funds borrowed.

Magic of diversification

The effective reduction of risk (variance) of a portfolio, achieved without reduction
to expected returns through the combination of assets with low or negative correlations (covariances).
Related: Markowitz diversification

Market portfolio

A portfolio consisting of all assets available to investors, with each asset held -in
proportion to its market value relative to the total market value of all assets.

Markowitz diversification

A strategy that seeks to combine assets a portfolio with returns that are less than
perfectly positively correlated, in an effort to lower portfolio risk (variance) without sacrificing return.
Related: naive diversification

Markowitz efficient portfolio

Also called a mean-variance efficient portfolio, a portfolio that has the highest
expected return at a given level of risk.

Markowitz efficient set of portfolios

The collection of all efficient portfolios, graphically referred to as the
Markowitz efficient frontier.

Mean-variance efficient portfolio

Related: Markowitz efficient portfolio

Minimum-variance portfolio

The portfolio of risky assets with lowest variance.
Minority interest An outside ownership interest in a subsidiary that is consolidated with the parent for
financial reporting purposes.

Modern portfolio theory

Principles underlying the analysis and evaluation of rational portfolio choices
based on risk-return trade-offs and efficient diversification.

Naive diversification

A strategy whereby an investor simply invests in a number of different assets and
hopes that the variance of the expected return on the portfolio is lowered.
Related: Markowitz diversification.

Normal portfolio

A customized benchmark that includes all the securities from which a manager normally
chooses, weighted as the manager would weight them in a portfolio.

Optimal portfolio

An efficient portfolio most preferred by an investor because its risk/reward characteristics
approximate the investor's utility function. A portfolio that maximizes an investor's preferences with respect
to return and risk.

Passive portfolio strategy

A strategy that involves minimal expectational input, and instead relies on
diversification to match the performance of some market index. A passive strategy assumes that the
marketplace will reflect all available information in the price paid for securities, and therefore, does not
attempt to find mispriced securities. Related: active portfolio strategy

Passive portfolio

A market index portfolio.

Portfolio

A collection of investments, real and/or financial.

Portfolio insurance

A strategy using a leveraged portfolio in the underlying stock to create a synthetic put
option. The strategy's goal is to ensure that the value of the portfolio does not fall below a certain level.

Portfolio internal rate of return

The rate of return computed by first determining the cash flows for all the
bonds in the portfolio and then finding the interest rate that will make the present value of the cash flows
equal to the market value of the portfolio.

Portfolio opportunity set

The expected return/standard deviation pairs of all portfolios that can be
constructed from a given set of assets.

Portfolio management

Related: Investment management

Portfolio manager

Related: Investment manager

Portfolio separation theorem

An investor's choice of a risky investment portfolio is separate from his
attitude towards risk. Related:Fisher's separation theorem.

Portfolio turnover rate

For an investment company, an annualized rate found by dividing the lesser of
purchases and sales by the average of portfolio assets.

Portfolio variance

Weighted sum of the covariance and variances of the assets in a portfolio.

Principal of diversification

Highly diversified portfolios will have negligible unsystematic risk. In other
words, unsystematic risks disappear in portfolios, and only systematic risks survive.

Replicating portfolio

A portfolio constructed to match an index or benchmark.

Structured portfolio strategy

A strategy in which a portfolio is designed to achieve the performance of some
predetermined liabilities that must be paid out in the future.

Tilted portfolio

An indexing strategy that is linked to active management through the emphasis of a
particular industry sector, selected performance factors such as earnings momentum, dividend yield, priceearnings
ratio, or selected economic factors such as interest rates and inflation.

Weighted average portfolio yield

The weighted average of the yield of all the bonds in a portfolio.

Well diversified portfolio

A portfolio spread out over many securities in such a way that the weight in any
security is small. The risk of a well-diversified portfolio closely approximates the systemic risk of the overall
market, the unsystematic risk of each security having been diversified out of the portfolio.

Zero-beta portfolio

A portfolio constructed to represent the risk-free asset, that is, having a beta of zero.

Zero-investment portfolio

A portfolio of zero net value established by buying and shorting component
securities, usually in the context of an arbitrage strategy.

Diversification

The process of spreading a portfolio over many investments to
avoid excessive exposure to any one source of risk

Portfolio

A collection of securities and investments held by an investor

Portfolio Weight

The percentage of a total portfolio represented by a single specific
security. It is calculated by dividing the value of the investment in a
specific security by the value of the investment in the total portfolio.

diversification

Strategy designed to reduce risk by spreading the portfolio across many investments.

market portfolio

portfolio of all assets in the economy. In practice a broad stock market index, such as the Standard & Poor's Composite, is used to represent the market.

Diversification

Investing so that all your eggs are not in the same basket. By spreading your investments over different kinds of investments, you cushion your portfolio against sudden swings in any one area. Segregated equity funds have become a popular and secure way for average investors to get the benefits of greater diversification.

Market Portfolio

The total of all investment opportunities available to the investor.

diversification

An investment technique intended to minimize risk by utilizing a wide variety of investments within a portfolio. In a diversified portfolio, a decline in the value of one investment, for example, should be offset by the strength of other investments.

Index Portfolio Rebalancing Service (IPRS)

Index portfolio Rebalancing Service (IPRS) is a comprehensive investment service that can help increase potential returns while reducing volatility. Several portfolios are available, each with its own strategic balance of Index Funds. IPRS maintains your personal asset allocation by monitoring and rebalancing your portfolio semi-annually.

Capital asset pricing model (CAPM)

An economic theory that describes the relationship between risk and
expected return, and serves as a model for the pricing of risky securities. The CAPM asserts that the only risk
that is priced by rational investors is systematic risk, because that risk cannot be eliminated by diversification.
The CAPM says that the expected return of a security or a portfolio is equal to the rate on a risk-free security
plus a risk premium.

Systematic risk

Also called undiversifiable risk or market risk, the minimum level of risk that can be
obtained for a portfolio by means of diversification across a large number of randomly chosen assets. Related:
unsystematic risk.

Asset-specific Risk

The amount of total risk that can be eliminated by diversification by
creating a portfolio. Also known as company-specific risk or
unsystematic risk.

Market Risk

The amount of total risk that cannot be eliminated by portfolio
diversification. The risk inherent in the general economy as a
whole. Also known as systemic risk.

Systematic Risk

The amount of total risk that cannot be eliminated by portfolio
diversification. The risk inherent in the general economy as a
whole. Also known as market risk.

Unsystematic Risk

The amount of total risk that can be eliminated by diversification by
creating a portfolio. Also known as asset-specific risk or
company-specific risk.

mutual fund

When you buy a mutual fund, you are pooling your money with that of other investors. An investment professional called a portfolio advisor takes that money and invests it for all the investors in a variety of different securities as determined by the investment objectives of the mutual fund. This gives you the benefit of diversification that is, being invested in many different investments at once.

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