Active Portfolio Management & Asset Allocation

Equity Allocation

• Describing the process of structuring equity allocation across sectors, geographies, and styles
• Understanding the search for “Alpha” and the use of Information Ratios to measure value-added
• Describing Smart Beta and factor-based investing strategies
• Exploring performance measurement and attribution techniques in equity portfolios
• Analyzing investor psychology and behavioral biases and their impact on investor’s decisions
• Discovering key asset classes, their characteristics, and historical risk-return profiles

Fixed Income Allocation and Hedge Funds

• Exploring different fixed-income instruments:
• Bond types
• Issuer types
• Interest rate mechanics
• Identifying risks associated with fixed income and exploring yield components
• Examining the role of emerging market debt and high-yield bonds in improving returns and diversification
• Exploring advanced fixed-income portfolio protection techniques:
• Hedge ration
• Hedging duration
• Convexity
• Asset SWAP’s
• Describing the fixed income attribution process and how it is used to measure returns in fixed-income portfolio
• Describing hedge fund structure, strategies, and the case for inclusion
• Exploring hedge fund trading techniques and tactics:
• Short selling
• Leverage
• Derivatives

Private Equity, Property, and Commodities

• Defining private equity and exploring different types of PE investments
• Methods for building and monitoring a private equity portfolio and measuring its performance
• Examining the private equity correlation with public markets and its impact on diversification
• Understanding property as a real asset class and its role in inflation protection
• Techniques for measuring and benchmarking property performance
• Best ways to include commodities in the portfolio for diversification and inflation hedging
• Identifying key risk measures in portfolio context: VaR, Sharpe, Sortino, skewness, and kurtosis

Structured Products and Tactical Allocation

• Definition of structured and their role in customized investment solutions
• Exploring foreign exchange products and certificates (Index, Basket, Comparison with Mutual funds, Covered Warrants)
• Exploring capital guarantee and protection products:
• • Vanilla products
  • Portfolio insurance
• Identifying maximum return products:
• • Discount certificates
  • Reverse convertibles
• Analyzing the role of derivatives within structured products in payoff design and risk transfer
• Defining Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as a tool for tactical asset allocation and market exposure
• Best methods to integrate risk-return trade-offs into asset allocation decisions