Relationship Between Bonds & Interest Rates
When you buy a bond, either directly or through a mutual fund, you're lending money to the bond's issuer, who promises to pay you back the principal (or par value) when the loan is due (on the bond's maturity date). In the meantime, the issuer also promises to pay you periodic interest payments to compensate you for the use of your money. The rate at which the issuer pays you – the bond's stated interest rate or coupon rate – is generally fixed at issuance.
An Inverse Relationship
When new bonds are issued, they typically carry coupon rates at or close to the prevailing market interest rate. Interest rates and bond prices have what's called an "inverse relationship" – meaning, when one goes up, the other goes down. The question is: how does the prevailing market interest rate affect the value of a bond you already own or a bond you want to buy from or sell to someone else? The answer lies in the concept of "opportunity cost."
Investors constantly compare the returns on their current investments to what they could get elsewhere in the market. As market interest rates change, a bond's coupon rate – which, remember, is fixed – becomes more or less attractive to investors, who are therefore willing to pay more or less for the bond itself. Let's look at an example.
Suppose the ABC company offers a new issue of bonds carrying a 7% coupon. This means it would pay you $70 a year in interest. After evaluating your investment alternatives, you decide this is a good deal, so you purchase a bond at its par value, $1,000.1
What if Rates Go Up?
Rate Interest Rate/Bond Price Relationship
Now let's suppose that later that year, interest rates in general go up. If new bonds costing $1,000 are paying an 8% coupon ($80 a year in interest), buyers will be reluctant to pay you face value ($1,000) for your 7% ABC bond. In order to sell, you'd have to offer your bond at a lower price – a discount – that would enable it to generate approximately 8% to the new owner. In this case, that would mean a price of about $875.1
What if Rates Fall?
Similarly, if rates dropped to below your original coupon rate of 7%, your bond would be worth more than $1,000. It would be priced at a premium, since it would be carrying a higher interest rate than what was currently available on the market.1
Of course, many other factors go into determining the attractiveness of a particular bond: the length of time until the bond matures, whether or not its interest is taxable, the creditworthiness of its issuer, the likelihood that the issuer will pay off debt early, and more. But the important thing to remember is that change, be it major or minor, occurs in market interest rates virtually every business day. The movement of bond prices and bond yields is simply a reaction to that change.
beta coefficient," is a measure of the volatility, or systematic risk, of a security or a portfolio in comparison to the market as a whole. Beta is calculated using regression analysis, and you can think of it as the tendency of an investment's return to respond to swings in the market. By definition, the market has a beta of 1.0. Individual security and portfolio values are measured according to how they deviate from the market.
A beta of 1.0 indicates that the investment's price will move in lock-step with the market. A beta of less than 1.0 indicates that the investment will be less volatile than the market, and, correspondingly, a beta of more than 1.0 indicates that the investment's price will be more volatile than the market. For example, if a fund portfolio's beta is 1.2, it's theoretically 20% more volatile than the market.
Conservative investors looking to preserve capital should focus on securities and fund portfolios with low betas, whereas those investors willing to take on more risk in search of higher returns should look for high beta investments.
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beta coefficient," is a measure of the volatility, or systematic risk, of a security or a portfolio in comparison to the market as a whole. Beta is calculated using regression analysis, and you can think of it as the tendency of an investment's return to respond to swings in the market. By definition, the market has a beta of 1.0. Individual security and portfolio values are measured according to how they deviate from the market.
A beta of 1.0 indicates that the investment's price will move in lock-step with the market. A beta of less than 1.0 indicates that the investment will be less volatile than the market, and, correspondingly, a beta of more than 1.0 indicates that the investment's price will be more volatile than the market. For example, if a fund portfolio's beta is 1.2, it's theoretically 20% more volatile than the market.
Conservative investors looking to preserve capital should focus on securities and fund portfolios with low betas, whereas those investors willing to take on more risk in search of higher returns should look for high beta investments.
Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/mutualfund/112002.asp#ixzz3cyln0uCF
Follow us: @Investopedia on Twitter
Unsystematic risk is the risk that comes with the type of industry or company in which funds are invested. Unsystematic risk can be eliminated by diversifying investments into a number of industries or companies. Systematic risk is the market risk or the uncertainty in the entire market that cannot be diversified away. Standard deviation measures the total risk, which is both systematic and unsystematic risk. Beta on the other hand measures only systematic risk (market risk). Standard deviation shows an asset’s individual risk or volatility. On the other hand, Beta is a relative measure used for comparison and does not show a security’s individual behavior. Beta measures an asset’s volatility in relation to the market’s performance.
What is the difference between Beta and Standard Deviation?
• Beta and standard deviation are measures of volatility used in the analysis of risk in investment portfolios.
• Beta measures a security’s or portfolio’s performance (asset’s risk and return) in relation to the movements in the market.
• A beta value of 1 show that the security is performing in line with the market’s performance; a beta of less than 1 show that security’s performance is less volatile than the market, and a beta of more than 1 show that a security’s performance is more volatile than the benchmark.
• The standard deviation of an investment measures the volatility of returns, and so the higher the standard deviation, the higher volatility and risk involved in the investment.