Mark Stober, William Robertson, and James McGuire are consultants for a regional pension consultancy. One of their clients, Richard Smitherspoon, chief investment officer of Quality Car Part Manufacturing, recently attended a conference on risk management topics for pension plans. Smitherspoon is a conservative manager who prefers to follow a long-term investment strategy with little portfolio turnover. Smitherspoon has substantial experience in managing a defined benefit plan but has little experience with
A. VAR is a universally accepted risk measure because it can be applied to practically any investment and is interpreted effectively the same way in each case; it is either the minimum or maximum loss at a given level of significance or confidence
B. We can calculate VAR using the delta-normal method, which is also known as the mean variance approach, the historical method, or the Monte Carlo method
C. Because of the way it is calculated, individual mean-variance VARs can probably be calculated for each of our portfolio managers, regardless of their style or assets under management