Which of the following statements is least likely to be an assumption about investor behaviour underlying the Markowitz model? A. Investors maximize one-period expected return B. Investors base their decisions solely on expected return and risk C. Investors have utility curves that are a function of expected returns and variance. Answer: A “Managing Investment Portfolio: A Dynamic Process” John Maginn, Donald Tuttle, Denis McLeavy, Jerald Pinto 2009 Modular Level I, Vol 4, p 225-226 Study Session 12-50 b; The candidate should be able to list the assumptions about investor behaviour underlying the Markowitz model; Investors maximize one-period expected utility, and their utility curves demonstrate diminishing marginal utility of wealth. Qn: Slightly confused… just want to check if I am alone. After reading closely …think I know where I am mistaken but…
thanks for posting, you’re not alone as I had this incorrect as well and is on the “REVIEW” pile…
Guys! You cant aim to maximize return, because the more risk you are willing to take, the more return you can attain. 'A 'is definitely not true; hence it is the right answer. Utility is what investors are after, which varies with each investor. Everyone has different risk return tradeoffs (Indifference curves)
The assumption that they have the same time horizon is part of capital markets theory.
For what its worth, (and I’m sure this is not a unique strategy, but does help with these type of questions) what sometimes helps me on the tricky questions is just eliminating the ones that are true and the one left over is, by default, correct. In this case, B & C are correct assumptions, so A must be the answer. Obviously it helps if you understand why each option is the correct/incorrect choice, but this my help to get through tough questions.