Risk Free Rate – What It Is And Why It’s Important?

The risk-free rate is the return on an investment that carries no risk or zero risk. It is the minimum return that an investor expects from an investment. The investor won’t accept any more risk unless they get a higher return than the risk-free rate.

Since it is the minimum return that an investor expects, the risk-free rate also acts as a benchmark for other interest rates. This means other financial institutions use it to set their interest rates. In the US, the interest rate on a three-month U.S. Treasury bill is usually used as a risk-free rate because of the large size and deep liquidity of this instrument.

Nothing is Risk-free

Investors expect a certain level of return when they make an investment. However, the actual return they get may not always be the same as their expectations. The difference in the return is due to the risk involved. Since the US Treasury bonds are risk-free, their expected and actual return is the same.

Risk Free Rate

However, no investment carries zero risk in today’s world, not even the U.S. Treasury bills. Though a government does not default on its obligations, such investments carry some risk for a foreign investor. A foreign investor incurs currency risk while investing in the U.S. Treasury bills. An investor can use hedging techniques like currency forwards and options to diversify such risk. But, it will impact the net return on the investment.

A risk-free rate, however, differs from investor to investor. Like, for a foreign investor, the U.S. Treasury bills carry some currency risk. But, if the same investor invests in the government securities in their home country, like a Swiss or German T-bill, such an investment would carry no currency risk.

Though an investor can overcome currency risk, there are two more risks that can’t be avoided. First is the inflation risk, where the actual returns are lower due to inflation over time. Another risk is the interest-rate risk, i.e., the Treasury prices fall when the interest rate rises and vice versa.

Why it’s important?

A risk-free rate serves as a foundation for all other types of investments, including the cost of equity. Since it carries no risk, all other investments, which carry some amount of risk, must offer a higher return to attract investors. So, other investments usually add a risk premium to the risk-free rate, known as the risk-adjusted discount rate, to come up with an interest rate.

How big the risk premium is, depends on the risk that the investment carries. For example, a corporate bond from a blue-chip company would carry a smaller risk premium compared to the one from a startup.

Additionally, the risk-free rate is an important input for calculating other important financial components, like the cost of equity, which determines the firm’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC) or Treynor’s Ratio. Also, it is a fundamental component of the Black-Scholes option pricing model, modern portfolio theory, and the capital asset pricing model (or CAPM).



Sanjay Borad

Sanjay Bulaki Borad

MBA-Finance, CMA, CS, Insolvency Professional, B'Com

Sanjay Borad, Founder of eFinanceManagement, is a Management Consultant with 7 years of MNC experience and 11 years in Consultancy. He caters to clients with turnovers from 200 Million to 12,000 Million, including listed entities, and has vast industry experience in over 20 sectors. Additionally, he serves as a visiting faculty for Finance and Costing in MBA Colleges and CA, CMA Coaching Classes.

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