BE313-5-AU-CO:
Portfolio Analysis
2019/20
Essex Business School
Colchester Campus
Autumn
Undergraduate: Level 5
Current
Thursday 03 October 2019
Saturday 14 December 2019
15
18 October 2019
Requisites for this module
BE300 or EC111 or IA712
(none)
(none)
(none)
BE314, BE331, BE332, BE335, BE630, BE631, BE937
BSC N420 Accounting and Finance,
BSC N422 Accounting and Finance (Including Placement Year),
BSC NN43 Accounting and Finance (Including Foundation Year),
BSC NNK3 Accounting and Finance (Including Year Abroad),
BSC N390 Banking and Finance,
BSC N392 Banking and Finance (Including Placement Year),
BSC NH90 Banking and Finance (Including Year Abroad),
BSC N300 Finance,
BSC N301 Finance (Including Foundation Year),
BSC N302 Finance (Including Year Abroad),
BSC N304 Finance (Including Placement Year),
BSC GN13 Finance and Mathematics,
BSC GN15 Finance and Mathematics (Including Placement Year),
BSC GN18 Finance and Mathematics (Including Foundation Year),
BSC GN1H Finance and Mathematics (Including Year Abroad),
BSC N344 Finance and Management,
BSC N345 Finance and Management (Including Year Abroad),
BSC N346 Finance and Management (Including Placement Year),
BSC N347 Finance and Management (Including Foundation Year),
LLB MN10 Law with Finance,
LLB MN11 Law with Finance (Including Year Abroad),
LLB MN12 Law with Finance (Including Placement Year)
This course focuses on the theoretical and empirical underpinning of trading strategies adopted by fund managers. The course shall outline the main theories of risk and return and explore the implications of these theories for investors' decisions. In doing so the course shall address questions such as: What is the appropriate measure of risk for a particular security? How might investors decide on the weightings of different assets in their portfolios? How can we identify mispriced stocks? Should you invest your savings in an actively managed fund or in a passive fund?
The course shall begin with an overview of how investors measure a security's risk and return and then, using Markowitz's mean-variance criteria, shall illustrate how efficient portfolios can be constructed. The main difficulty with Markowitz style optimisers is how fund managers predict future risk and returns of individual securities. In this course we shall introduce some of the approaches used to make those predictions.
Bonds are often regarded as a relatively low risk asset class. Alternative measures of bond risk are evaluated, and a portfolio strategy that claims to remove all risk is outlined and critically evaluated.
The main aims of the course are:
* to give students an appreciation of different approaches to portfolio management
* to examine how investors may fully exploit the benefits of diversification
* to provide students with an understanding of the models that are relevant to the management of bond portfolios
* to introduce students to the main asset pricing models
On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
* understand what is meant by an efficient portfolio and how to identify efficient portfolio;
* explain how investors may fully exploit the benefits of diversification
* understand the importance of the CAPM and APT;
* evaluate competing measures of bond risk.
Skills for Your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)
Upon successful completion of the module, students should be able to:
* develop quantitative skills from assessing risk and returns across different asset classes such as stocks and bonds.
* Identify and implement investment strategies in determining the optimal mix of risk-return investment portfolios.
* critically evaluate portfolio performance and adjust portfolios to meet the investment objectives.
* evaluate financial information and make investment management decisions.
No additional information available.
The module material will be delivered in the following way:
* 2 hours of lectures per week
* Weekly seminars from Week 3 to Week 11. Work will be given in advance (see Moodle web page) for you to attempt before the class.
This module does not appear to have any essential texts. To see non-essential items, please refer to the module's reading list.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
| Coursework |
Assignment |
|
|
| Exam |
Main exam: 24hr during Summer (Main Period)
|
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Dr Nikolaos Vlastakis, email: nvlast@essex.ac.uk.
Dr Nikolaos Vlastakis, Dr Senyu Wang
E: ebsugcol@essex.ac.uk
Yes
Yes
No
Dr Apostolos Kourtis
The University of East Anglia
Senior Lecturer in Finance
Available via Moodle
Of 213 hours, 170 (79.8%) hours available to students:
43 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
0 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s).
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