Defining Bad News: Changes in Return Distributions That Decrease Risky Asset Demand

We provide a random variable characterization of the necessary and sufficient conditions for a shift of the distribution of rate of return on the risky asset in the two-asset portfolio problem to reduce demand for all strictly risk-averse expected-utility-maximizing investors. We also provide random variable characterizations of the shifts that reduce both demand and expected utility for all strictly risk-averse investors.