Risk Premium

Risk premium

The reward for holding the risky market portfolio rather than the risk-free asset. The spread between Treasury and non-Treasury bonds of comparable maturity.

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risk premium

The extra yield over the risk-free rate owing to various types of risk inherent in a particular investment. For example, any issuer other than the U.S. government usually must pay investors a risk premium in the form of a higher interest rate on bonds to account for the fact that the risk of default is less on U.S. government securities than on securities of other issuers. Also called bond premium risk.

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Risk Premium

The return over and above the risk free rate of return that an investor expects in exchange for each additional unit of risk. According to Markowitz portfolio theory, rational investors only accept additional risk if they expect a greater return. One refers to this greater return as the risk premium. See also: Risk capital, Eat well, Sleep well.

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Risk premium. A risk premium is one way to measure the risk you'd take in buying a specific investment. Some analysts define risk premium as the difference between the current risk-free return -- defined as the yield on a 13-week US Treasury bill -- and the potential total return on the investment you're considering.

Other measures of risk premium, which are applied specifically to stocks, are a stock's beta, or the volatility of that stock in relation to the stock market as a whole, and a stock's alpha, which is based on an evaluation of the stock's intrinsic value.

Similarly, the higher interest rates that bond issuers typically offer on bonds below investment grade may be considered a risk premium, since the higher rate, and potentially greater return, is a way to compensate for the greater risk.