Firm-Specific Risk: An Analysis Of Firm-Specific Risk

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Firm-specific Risk is the probability of financial loss to an investor because of factors related to a specific company, within a specific business sector. Firm-specific Risk is also known as Non-systemic risk or Unsystematic risk and is related to a company’s inability to generate earnings. Firm-specific risk should be considered in addition to Market Risk when considering the total risk of an investment. The best protection against firm-specific risk is investment diversification, which lowers the probability in relation to a specific company.
Firm-specific risks include Business Risk, Liquidity Risk, Financial Risk, Political Risk, Tax Risk, Credit Risk and Call Risk. Business Risk results from the probability that a company will experience …show more content…

Market Risk is also known as Systematic Risk due to its broad impact on investments. The level of Market Risk depends on the probability that the entire market will decline and drag down the values of all companies. With Market Risk, investors stand to lose value irrespective of the companies, business sectors, or investment vehicles they are invested in. It can be difficult for investors to protect themselves against market risk, since investment strategies, like diversification, is mostly ineffective (Investopedia, …show more content…

The recession was preceded by the global boom of 2002 - 2007, which resulted in risky investment decisions by individual companies, which eventually left the markets teetering on weak financial supports. Cracks in the over-optimistic market started developing, first with the collapse of individual companies, including Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, but those cracks quickly spread to the housing market and soon impacted the entire U.S. market. At the same time, markets all around the world tumbled, wiping out trillions of dollars in value for global investors. In the U.S., unemployment shot up by 5%, while the S&P 500 lost up to 40% of its value in one year. The events of 2008 and the realization of Firm-specific and Market Risk left investors with few safe-havens to protect their investments (International Monetary Fund,

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