Risk Tolerance-- CFA rec's person, states, standard

joehogue

If a person states that they haven’t liked the high volatility of the markets the last few years and they don’t want their portfolio to see a shortfall portfolio loss of more than 11.5% (using 2 standard deviations)
How would you classify their willingness?
Below/Average/Above Average.

morebeans

Haha, only because I stay away from the FI and derivative questions ;)
Greg Filbeck (self described CFA historian) said that in the last 19 years there has been only 1 IPS where the client’s risk tolerance was average. So, take what you will from that, but I know I will be double checking my answer if I think “average” the answer.

kseniaru

Anectdotally, it seems to me that CFAI tries to avoid cases that are average, but rather moves towards the extremes. Just saying, if a case seems borderline average to above or average to below, I will always go with the non-average answer. It would be telling to look through the guidline answers of past exams and see how many times average was the correct answer….
Aimee - you’ve been on fire lately!

joemoran

Here’s a hint that was given to me and I haven’t seen it fail yet (not that I’ve taken many tests yet): Investor statements override anything else when it comes to willingness. So, by mentioning that they dislike volatility, that’s pretty much automatically below average.
FWIW, I think the shortfall requirement piece sounds more related to ability to take risk. Willingness is pretty much based on feelings and attitudes and (again, I haven’t taken many tests yet, but) I have yet to see anything with numbers that affects willingness.

MonkeyBusiness

average - just on this information