Financial analysts commonly use an approach called value at reisk to compare the risk of stocks or portfolios. The analyst tries to estimate a low percentile (such as the 5th or 10th percentile) of the forecasted range of possible returns for a given stock or portfolio and that percentile is used as a rough measure of the worst-case senario for that investment. Suppose an analyst is trying to compare two investments: Investment A has a forecasted average return of $10 million with a standard deviation of $3 million, and Investment B has a forecasted average return of $12 million with a standard deviation of $5 million. The analyst wants to avoid risk and invest in the one that has a larger 5 percentile for the return distribution. Which investment should he/she make?

Financial analysts commonly use an approach called value at reisk to compare the risk of stocks or portfolios. The analyst tries to estimate a low percentile (such as the 5th or 10th percentile) of the forecasted range of possible returns for a given stock or portfolio and that percentile is used as a rough measure of the worst-case senario for that investment. Suppose an analyst is trying to compare two investments: Investment A has a forecasted average return of $10 million with a standard deviation of $3 million, and Investment B has a forecasted average return of $12 million with a standard deviation of $5 million. The analyst wants to avoid risk and invest in the one that has a larger 5 percentile for the return distribution. Which investment should he/she make?