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Difficulty: Very hardSystematic and Market Risks

A wealth manager is evaluating the risk profile of an institutional client's portfolio, which is broadly diversified across domestic equities, long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, and international debt securities. When assessing how macro-level economic factors impact this portfolio, which of the following statements regarding systematic risks are correct?

  1. Inflation risk acts as a systematic risk that can diminish the real purchasing power of cash flows generated by both equity and fixed-income securities.Answer
  2. B
    Expanding the portfolio from 50 to over 500 individual stocks across different industries will effectively eliminate all market risk from the equity allocation.
  3. Long-term U.S. Treasury bonds remain fully subject to interest rate risk even though they carry negligible credit or default risk.Answer
  4. D
    A sudden rise in benchmark interest rates will cause the secondary market prices of existing long-term Treasury bonds to increase proportionally.

Answer

Inflation risk impacts the real purchasing power of cash flows across multiple asset classes, and long-term Treasury bonds remain subject to systematic interest rate risk despite having no default risk.
Systematic risks represent economy-wide factors that cannot be eliminated through portfolio diversification. Inflation risk erodes real purchasing power across both fixed-income and equity investments, while long-term Treasury bonds remain vulnerable to market-wide interest rate fluctuations despite carrying no issuer credit risk.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Distinguish between systematic risk and unsystematic risk characteristics.
Systematic risks (such as market risk, interest rate risk, and inflation risk) stem from broad macroeconomic factors and affect the overall financial system. They cannot be eliminated through asset diversification.
Understanding non-diversifiability is central to evaluating systematic risk statements.
2
Analyze the impact of purchasing power (inflation) risk across asset classes.
Inflation risk reduces the purchasing power of future cash flows for both equity dividend streams and fixed-income coupon payments, making it a systematic risk.
Broad increases in price levels erode real returns regardless of specific asset selection.
3
Assess interest rate risk on government-backed fixed-income instruments.
Even though U.S. Treasury bonds carry virtually no default risk, their market price fluctuates inversely with prevailing interest rates, exposing holders to systematic interest rate risk.
Interest rate risk is driven by macroeconomic rate fluctuations rather than issuer creditworthiness.
4
Evaluate misconceptions regarding stock diversification limits and bond pricing dynamics.
Diversification eliminates unsystematic (company-specific) risk but leaves market risk intact. Additionally, interest rates and bond prices share an inverse relationship, so rising interest rates depress bond prices.
These false premises conflate unsystematic risk reduction with systematic risk exposure and invert standard bond pricing mechanics.

Key Concept

Systematic risks (market, interest rate, and inflation/purchasing power risks) are driven by broad macroeconomic forces, cannot be eliminated through asset diversification, and affect securities regardless of issuer credit quality.
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Topics

Systematic and Market Risks

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