School of Management faculty member Yexiao Xu will discuss “Systematic Risk and Idiosyncratic Risk in Stock Investing” on Monday, Oct. 26, as part of a series of 40 public forums to mark UT Dallas’ fourth decade as a UT System institution.

Yexiao Xu

Xu’s talk, the first in the yearlong “40@40” series, will explore how conventional notions of risk and return have given way to new ideas about the importance of firm-specific risk. The talk will be held 4 p.m. in the McDermott Suite (MC 4.404).

Investment theory applies the term idiosyncratic risk to the uncertainty an investor faces by owning shares in one specific company. Investors seeking to mitigate idiosyncratic risk often elect to hedge their bets by owning more than one stock, or diversifying their holdings.

Systematic risk is the risk that market as a whole faces, possibly from changes in the economy or from political events. Diversification is of no help to investors trying to avoid systematic risk because such uncertainty affects the entire market.

Xu’s research on investment volatility has been cited in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Money Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Business Work and other financial media.

Xu teaches business finance to undergraduates and financial management and econometrics at the graduate level. He earned his PhD at Princeton University.

Media Contact: Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu


40th Year Lecture Series

 

Upcoming 40@40 lectures include the following:

 

“From Behind the Iron Curtain to Membership in the European Union”
Management faculty member Peter Petrik will give a personal account of Eastern Europe’s transformation since the end of the Cold War.

“The ‘Behavioral Revolution’ in Economics: How We Make Financial Decisions”
EPPS faculty member Rachel Croson will discuss how the standard model of a rational “economic man” has changed.