Wall Street types have many ways of assessing the risk involved in their investments. One popular way is to draw a capital allocation line (CAL) on a graph (using an Excel program most of the time). The line will show all possible combinations of low-risk assets (such as Treasury notes) and more risky assets (such as stocks). The capital allocation line helps investors decide what combination of low-risk assets vs. more risky assets to invest in.
Using the graph, you can find your personal sweet spot of risk vs. return. The Y-axis is the expected return and the X-axis is the amount of risk, as measured by the standard deviation from the mean. If you pick a preferred risk level, the graph will show you the expected return. Or you can target a return level and see what kind of risk you'll have to stomach.
So let's say trader Calvin wants to determine the best combination of low-risk investments and more risky ones. He has two assets: a Treasury note and a stock of a recent initial public offering (IPO). Calvin expects the Treasury note to return 3% with a risk of (essentially) zero. His analysis shows the stock will return 11%, but the risk factor is much higher than with the Treasury (and higher than Calvin is willing to deal with).
After trying different combinations in the CAL program, Calvin decides that his optimal mix is to invest 30% in the virtually-risk-free Treasury note and 70% in the more risky stock. That gets him a healthy-enough return and a risk level that will allow him to sleep at night.
An example of a capital allocation line can be found at http://breakingdownfinance.com/finance-topics/modern-portfolio-theory/capital-allocation-line/.
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Karl Marx was a fiercely bearded German economist and philosopher.
seriously look at beard .fierce. with the help of his equally bushy pal Friedrich [Marx pictured]
angles Marx wrote a little book that would have enormous influence on the
Russian revolutionaries of the early 20th century. that book of course was
called Little House on the Prairie. it's just making sure you're with us. it
was actually called the communist manifesto. so let's break it down .the
world according to Marx suffers because of social classes. well in the Western
world we started with feudalism as the class system .if you were a king life was
groovy. if you were a serf and not so much. feudalism crashed and burned and
capitalism rolled in with its booze huazi and proletariat classes. well
according to the Communist Manifesto capitalism was much much much worse than
feudalism. why ?because the booze huazi or owners are the means of production who [communist manifesto pictured]
embraced capitalism would do anything to make a dollar.
this included dehumanizing abusing and manipulating the proletariat or worker
class who toiled on their behalf. so Marx and Engels believed that capitalism
caused enormous suffering and hardship in the modern world. furthermore it
caused corruption because the government was essentially in cahoots with the
bourgeoisie. thanks to the unfairness inherent in capitalism Marxism states
that the proletariat and bourgeoisie will forever be butting heads .more
importantly that tension will eventually result in a revolution of the masses. and
just what would that revolution look like? well Marx and Engels had a few
ideas .there would be no private ownership of land. there would be no
inheritance rights. the state would control the means of communication and
transport .and instead of laboring in factories kids would go to school where
they'd get a free education. the communist manifesto posits that Marxism
would succeed where other forms of socialism had failed because communists
would always put the proletariat first. furthermore other forms of socialism
were nothing more than programs for small reforms .if the ship of the worker [different ships with different forms of government written on sails]
was going to be set right full-blown an all-out revolution was needed.
and that's what Marxism was all about. Marx and Engels like to think that
Germany would be ground zero for the proletariat takeover.
they probably rolled over in their graves when Hitler came to power, but
never fear the Communist Manifesto was a home run for one group. da the Russians.
at the turn of the 20th century there were two divisions of the Russian social
democratic Labour Party .the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks many of whom had been
kicked out of Russia for being naughty revolutionaries spent about a decade
meeting in pubs in London. over a nice warm pint they'd argue about whose
interpretation of Marxism was correct and what the best method for taking over
Russia was .well frankly we would have picked somewhere tropical for our
communist revolution but well to each his own. while the Mensheviks and [Castro pictured]
Bolsheviks both wanted Russia to ditch capitalism and the Czar their
medium-term goals were quite different. well the Mensheviks wanted to work with
Russian officials already in office to build a kind of democratic system that
would make Russia a better place for everyone. Bolsheviks wanted to burn it
all down. well if you're wondering where Vladimir Lenin is and all this wonder no
more it was at the head of the Bolsheviks. he thought the Mensheviks
were wusses and that Russia's communist government would need to be small and
tightly controlled so that the masses wouldn't rebel. anywho after all those
years of plotting abroad the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks finally saw an
opportunity to get things going in 1917. and viva la revolucion. but that's for [mob of Russians protest]
another video. what, you thought we'd give you all the fun stuff right now?
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