小V · 2019年06月08日
1、课程笔记提到“roles of PE”，有两点分别是：ability to achieve sufficient diversification；以及appropriate diversification strategy。请问这两者有明显区别吗？如果没有，为何要提及两次呢?
2、经典题3.5，题目中的第一个comment是：Private Equity has low correlations with public equity，so it can greatly contribute to a portfolio‘s ability to diversify risk。老师提到并非low correlation，correlation其实并不低，如果是这样的，那如何解释我上面第一问提到的“sufficient diversification"呢？
韩韩_品职助教 · 2019年06月09日
原版书分别在两个部分提到了PE的相关性，一是在historical performance知识点下，二是在roles in the portfolio下。这两处说法就有不一致的地方。
historical performance:
Private equity returns have exhibited a low correlation with the returns to publicly traded securities, making private equity an attractive
addition to a portfolio. However, because of a lack of observable market prices for private equity, short-term return and correlation data
may be subject to the smoothing effects of stale prices.
Roles in portfolio:
The moderately high average correlation of private equity returns with publicly traded share returns that has been documented has a plausible economic explanation: All types of businesses have some exposure to economic and industry conditions, so correlations between public and private equity returns may be expected to be positive. Furthermore, venture capital uses public equity markets as one main exit route, so returns to VC fund investors can be expected to be higher when public equity market values are advancing.
Private equity probably can play a moderate role as a risk diversifier. However, many investors look to private equity investment for long-term return enhancement.
所以不要关注historical performance那里，重点还是要掌握roles in portfolio这个知识点下的内容。对于PE来说，它能提供足够的分散化效果的（讲义里和原版书都说的是moderate/sufficient diversifier)，但相对别的另类投资品例如HF，分散化的效果就会差一些。PE更重要的也是非常有辨识度的一个知识点就是它的return enhancement作用。所以总体就是分散化效果适度，但是长期有很好的提升收益的作用。
