Financial Risk Manager - FRM

  

If it could, every business would hire an honest-to-goodness fortune teller to outline what the future holds. That way, the company could avoid unexpected catastrophes and all the bad decisions they would otherwise end up making.

Unfortunately, fortune tellers aren't really an option (though bringing one to a board meeting might provide an interesting distraction). So businesses turn to the next best thing: financial risk managers.

These professionals review a company and figure out possible risks threatening the operation. Then they suggest possible precautions the firm can take to avoid the worst scenarios. Buy insurance, hedge in the options market, diversify product lines...the FRM can advise clients on how best to limit their exposure to bad turns of fortune.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: How Are Risks and Rewards Relat...589 Views

00:04

Finance a la shmoop how are risk and reward related? or

00:10

interrelated okay so here's an illustration of risk you're in a golf [golfball near a golf hole]

00:15

tournament on the first tee of a hole with a narrow fairway if you take just a

00:19

half swing your ball won't go very far but you also likely won't end up here [golfer gives a half swing and ball goes towards the hole]

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it'll almost certainly fit nicely in the fairway and it's likely you'll need

00:28

three or four half swing strokes to reach the green if you're cool with [golfer taking multiple shots and reaches the green]

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shooting 28 over par or a hundred today well then maybe these half

00:37

swings are your ticket to happiness sometimes a score of a hundred wins the [golfer stood beside a scoreboard with a score of 100]

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purple turkey that is you are taking less risk and are totally fine being

00:46

rewarded less all right now meet Corey Mcilshmoop he wants the big score

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lots of strokes under par and he's willing to risk a lot to get there. His [Corey Mcilshmoop swinging a golf club]

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ball either goes 340 yards and lands on the green setting him up for an eagle

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putt it goes out of bounds with a vengeance there, ouch.. all right well on

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the investing golf course like this one generally speaking riskier investments [golf course made into an investment course]

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are things that don't have a long track record of success like compare the

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coca-cola company with a new IPO of whatever.com what are the odds that in [a comparison of coca cola vs. whatever.com]

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five years people are still drinking sugared fizzy water well pretty good

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right now how about the odds of a billion people still being enamored of [myspace and whatever.com with number of people liking the website rising]

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whatever com yeah much less clear like less clear than crystal pepsi.. Risky can

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also mean private investments in two kids plugging away inside of a garage [Kids working on a project in a garage on laptops]

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and yeah they could be Larry and Sergey making Google but more likely they could

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be buzz and billy-bob making a whoopee cushion that pushes the bounds of

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realism yeah..risky can also be just a company that doesn't pay a dividend if a

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company does pay a divy, you at least get the dividend back each year as you slowly get your

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initial investment returned to you you can make money even if the stock price [company's share price, dividend and yield]

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doesn't go up in the case where stock pays no dividend your instead betting [person puts chips onto a roulette table]

02:07

everything that the company will just grow but growth companies with no

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dividend while that's all well and good think things

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like Facebook and Amazon and uber but if the company doesn't grow well then bad [whatever.com falling on the floor]

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things happen you've got no dividend and the share prices declined and so the

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basic idea is that the more risk you take the more reward you can have in the [man playing golf and eagle swoops and picks up ball]

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same lack of reward you can have as well and every now and then you get one of

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the three hundred forty yard drive to go in the hole which makes the risk totally [money falling next to a building of baby's first chainsaw]

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worth it yeah because well you're never going to sit around telling your

02:39

grandkids about the time you shanked your drive 15 yards [grandad telling children a story about golf]

Up Next

Finance: What is Event Risk?
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What is Event Risk? Event risk just means that some random event has taken place that has affected a company’s ability to conduct business and co...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)