Tag: return calculations

  • Capital asset pricing model (CAPM)

    Capital asset pricing model (CAPM)

    The capital asset pricing model (or CAPM) is a widely-used asset pricing model. Its popularity arises from its simplicity and elegance. Analysts and investors use it to forecast returns or to estimate the cost of equity. In this lesson, we’ll explain this model together with its assumptions. And, you can find a handy CAPM calculator…

  • Expected return, standard deviation, covariance in Excel

    Expected return, standard deviation, covariance in Excel

    In this tutorial, we will explain how you can use Excel to calculate a stock’s expected return, standard deviation, and its covariance with another stock. See the last item in the Contents box below to follow this tutorial in a video format and/or download the Excel template we use. If it is an online calculator…

  • Total return formula and calculator

    Total return formula and calculator

    In the second lesson of our investments course, we’ll be learning about a stock’s total return and its two components: capital gains and dividend yield. Total return formula Imagine that you bought a stock a few months ago for $10 per share and the current share price is $12. Based on what we learned in…

  • Gross return vs net return

    Gross return vs net return

    We begin our investments course by introducing fundamental return calculations. It’s essential to grasp the difference between gross returns and net returns from the outset. We define these two fundamental concepts below with practical examples. You might find the video tutorial at the end useful as well. Gross return Let’s suppose you bought shares of…

  • How to calculate portfolio risk and return in Excel

    How to calculate portfolio risk and return in Excel

    In this tutorial, we’ll teach you how to calculate portfolio risk and return in Excel. We’ll focus on an example where we construct a portfolio of the following three stocks: Tesla (TSLA), Amazon (AMZN), and Netflix (NFLX). If you’re unfamiliar with the formulas for portfolio return and portfolio risk, we’d recommend you check the following…

  • Security market line

    Security market line

    The security market line (SML) depicts the linear relationship between expected return and systematic risk, which is measured by beta, according to the capital asset pricing model (CAPM). Specifically, the equation of the security market line is nothing but the CAPM formula: where E[Ri] is the expected return on asset i, E[Rm] is the expected…

  • What is risk premium?

    What is risk premium?

    Risk premium definition The risk premium for a security (e.g., stock, bond, etc.) can be defined as the return the security generates over the risk-free rate of return. For example, if the yields on government bonds are 3%, and a stock is expected to return 8%, then this stock’s risk premium is 8% − 3% =…

  • What is the risk-free rate?

    What is the risk-free rate?

    The risk-free rate is the rate of return earned on a risk-free asset. While returns on risky assets such as stocks are uncertain, the key distinction of the risk-free rate of return is that we know its exact value at the time of investment. For example, we may expect a stock to yield 8% over…

  • Return volatility formula and calculator

    Return volatility formula and calculator

    The topic of this lesson is the return volatility of risky assets such as stocks, mutual funds, etc. We will explain how to measure it and provide a calculator as well. What is (stock) return volatility? Imagine an investor who bought shares of a stock three years ago. According to the investor’s calculations, her annual…

  • Arithmetic average return calculator and formula

    Arithmetic average return calculator and formula

    In this lesson, we introduce a simple yet really useful measure of investment performance. In particular, we discuss the arithmetic average return formula and provide a practical arithmetic average return calculator. It is really important for investors to be able to accurately assess the performance of their investments. In that sense, arithmetic average (or mean)…