Trina Romel, mutual fund manager, is taking over a poor-performing fund from a colleague. Romel wants to calculate the return on the portfolio. Over the last five years, the fund’s annual percentage returns were: 25, 15, 12, -8, and –14. Determine if the geometric return of the fund will be less than or greater than the arithmetic return and calculate the fund’s geometric return:
Geometric Return Geometric compared to Arithmetic
The geometric return is calculated as follows:
[(1 + 0.25)(1 + 0.15)(1 + 0.12)(1 - 0.08)(1 – 0.14)]1/5 – 1,
or [1.25 × 1.15 × 1.12 × 0.92 × 0.86]0.2 – 1 = 0.4960, or 4.96%.
The geometric return will always be less than or equal to the arithmetic return. In this case the arithmetic return was 6%. |