Essays on Portfolio

Abstract

The modern mantra of corporate risk management is fast becoming “A risk is risk is a risk.” Large, multinational companies are no longer prepared to approach risk management on a single risk-by-risk basis. It makes no sense for a manager to accept a potential $30m loss in the organization’s currency-trading activities and simultaneously hedge against a $10m loss on a suburban office property. Risk managers now realize that any particular risk can have consequences for many seemingly unconnected parts of the business-losses in one part of the business might be offset by gains else where in the organization Continue reading...

Building a balanced securities portfolio is a difficult task taking into account tendencies of contemporary stock exchange. This paper is devoted to this issue and represents two strategies of building stocks and bonds portfolios implementing fundamental and technical analyses. Also, main concepts of allocation of securities were described and analysis of created portfolios with the help of appropriate benchmarks was represented.

Investment Analysis and Strategy

Part 1. Fundamental and Technical Analyses of Securities

A) Fundamental Analysis of Stocks

Fundamental analysis aimed at buying stocks which prices are below the potential value. There are several methods used by analysts that help determine the right Continue reading...

Answer a)

i) Comparing the expected return and standard deviation of various assets in the portfolio, we have analyzed the following characteristics:
a) Australia Shares on account of total risk of almost 22% is capable of providing return of 16%
b) Australian Bonds with risk accounting to 7% provides return of 11.5% to the investor.
c) Cash being the most liquid asset and least risky asset with risk factor of only 4.4%, provides return of 9.25%.
d) As for international shares, despite the high risk factor of 22.62% and relatively low return of 14.88% as compared to asutralians shares, the offshore Continue reading...

Introduction:

Projects are a crucial component of the current world of business which is characterized by development of new products and services. It is also involves the change in the internal operations of the business and implementing the strategies of the business. Projects also takes a larger proportion of the business activities taking a large proportion of the shares prices and budgeting activities which are very components of the company in decision making a factor which makes the projects very complex due to the large and wide scope of operation of the companies. It is difficult for a business or Continue reading...

Introduction

While selecting any specific portfolio it is extremely crucial that we assess the risk and return of the securities properly, to avoid facing any unfavorable scenarios in the future. For this, we need to have a thorough understanding and estimates of the risks and returns associated with a given portfolio. The expected return can be defined as the average weighted outcome of any given project and in this case, any given portfolio. In the case of a portfolio it includes all of the average weights of the expected returns associated with the individual stocks. To be more accurate, the Continue reading...

Executive summary

As the newly appointed head of the travel and hotel support operations strategic unit of this company, I have thoroughly schemed through these units activities and would like to present my suggestions on some of the changes that need to be made in the company’s operational activities. My role as the head of the operations strategic unit is to manage the product portfolio of this unit. The operations unit is responsible for providing all the services offered by this company to its various clients. I have scrutinized my area of control and have come up with a concrete Continue reading...

Introduction

The report is being prepared with the objective of discussing my portfolio strategy where according to my risk tolerance(high), an amount of $50000 will be allocated amongst various asset classes. In addition to the risk tolerance, creating a well-diversified portfolio will be on the top of my preference list. I am sure that with the amount of knowledge and traits relating to portfolio management, I will be able to create a balanced portfolio for myself that will help me to earn 12-13% return on per annum basis.

Investment Strategy and Risk Tolerance

The golden idea in the world of the portfolio management ‘’Never Continue reading...

(Professor Name)

Portfolio Management Concepts
The concept of portfolio management is a lucrative sword as not only it offers not only returns but the investor also have to face risk associated with it. If the Investor is willing to earn higher return he has to associate higher return with higher risk. For an investor to diversify away the risk he can follow diversification rule. Under diversification, investor can include the assets which are not correlated to each other and thus by including these asset classes he can diversify away the risk. However, in terms of the risk there are Continue reading...

Portfolio Summary

Executive Summary:
The portfolio which consists of twenty (20) stocks from varied industries has been benchmarked against S& P500 index on weekly basis from 8-4-2014 to 29-5-2014. During the period of our analysis, while the S&P 500 index has earned return in the range of -1.43% to 0.43%, the portfolio performance on the other hand has been bumpy. For Instance, in the beginning week of our investment, the portfolio earned a return of 12.37%, by the end of last week; the portfolio earned a return of -10.99%.

Management Discussion and Analysis:

The portfolio consists of twenty stocks and has been benchmarked against the Continue reading...

Executive Summary

Fundamental analyses of company shares involve the review of the financial aspects of a company and generate metrics, such as the price and book value of a security or the enterprise value and the EBITDA to value of a stock. Conversely, the technical analysis of a company shares involves the valuing of company shares on the historical information about pricing and volume. In this analysis several assumptions are used: the market value is taken to reflect the demand and supply of the security, the demand and supply are driven by factors such as economic and information analysis which are Continue reading...

Portfolio Management

Part 1)
Compare your portfolio’s return over the investment period with the Market Portfolio. Did you outperform the Market Portfolio? What if you take the CAPM result into account? Show all calculations used. What might be some reasons your portfolio either outperformed or underperformed vis á vis the Market Portfolio?

Answer)

Portfolio Construction and outcome
The portfolio was constructed using three stocks from different industries where the objective was to analyze their performance in comparison to the market index, S&P 500. The three stocks selected by us were Apple Inc., Starbucks and Tesla Motors with weights allocated as 22.19%, 52.66% Continue reading...

INVESTMENT POLICY STATEMENT

INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of this document of Investment Policy Statement is to define a business relationship leading to agreement between the investor John Nowak, the heir of Nowak’s Delaware Wooden Pallets and the advisors Investment Advisors Ltd. represented by James Tower. James Tower will in his function of financial adviser to John Nowak, be responsible for the updates to the Investment Policy, monitoring application and notification of the need for updates and violations in Policy implementations. Investment Advisors Ltd. represented by James Tower will act as a fiduciary in their capacity as advisers to the Tower Family Continue reading...

Answer a)

T-Bills are independent from state of economy on account of having back up faith of US Treasury. In other words, T-Bills are risk free from default probability because the return of 5.5% will be realized irrespective of state of economy. US Treasury will have to redeem the T-Bills in any economic state.
However, the rate of 5.5% is composed of Risk Free Rate(2.5%) + Inflation premium(3%) and since there is uncertainty about level of inflation in the future, T-Bills are not purely risk free in terms of purchasing power. For Example if Inflation averaged to be 3.5% during Continue reading...

When investing one's money, several factors should be considered starting with evaluating what a portfolio should comprise of. This report will analyze three different items. First of all, it will address the effects of international diversification on the investment portfolio. It will then address alternative investment vehicles and finally it will look at how the derivative securities can also enhance a portfolio performance.
An international portfolio involves people looking at investment choices outside the United States since they create high diversification for customers. International portfolio has provided security of assets. In the event that the United States stock market Continue reading...

Introduction

Investments have two aspects; returns and risks that determine their desirability to an investor. In that respect, analyzing the two is crucial, and several models have been advanced for the purpose of identifying most suitable portfolios. In addition, investor's preferences and risk profile determine their investments choices. Thus, a portfolio construction is based on the involved assets return and risk as well as the client’s risk profile. To demonstrate the process of portfolio construction in view of the clients’ profile, this report uses a case of a client with identified investments goals. The report uses a questionnaire to Continue reading...

Answer 1)

a)There's a substantial unexpected increase in inflation:
Undiversifiable/Systematic Risk: Since inflation and related increase in it is a macro economic factor and something not related to performance of stock or related companies, the diversiifcation process cannot deal with it and hence effect of inflation will remain in the portfolio construction even if we include all the availble stock in our portfolio.
b) Major Recession in US:
Undiversifiable/Systematic Risk: Just like Inflation, Recession is also an macro economic factor and an investor cannot deal with it. Important to note that an investor is always compensated for bearing systematic risk Continue reading...

Introduction

The need and consideration of investment is extremely important for the sake of an organization, as well as for the sake of an individual. In the end of the day only those individuals or organizations will deem effective and proactive who have an effective approach as far as investment planning is concerned.
The maneuvering related to the management of investment delivers something extraordinary for the companies as well as the investors; however it is required to plan the things in an effective manner. An investor will always look over the analytical provision, and would always like to mitigate the Continue reading...

A good investment portfolio requires proper investment decision based on the past, present and future market trends. This calls for thorough analysis of both the industry and the individual investment in order to ascertain the portfolio’s viability and profitability. This paper therefore highlights the investors’ profiles in the USA’s capital market and considers the current capital market information of the USA to help in building an investment portfolio.

The United States Capital Market is the world’s largest capital market with seven sectors and six categories of instruments.

The main sectors or the players are: Households, fund managers, corporate managers, bankers and brokers, foreign investors, insurance executives, and government officials. The securities (securitized instruments) include corporate equities, Continue reading...

Q.1 Financial ratios important to a small business and their comparison with ratios critical to a manager of a larger corporation

The following ratios are critical for small businesses:

- Acid test ratio/ Quick ratio: Current assets – stock/Inventory

Current liabilities

Measure liquidity position of a firm
- Average collection period: Average debtors – 365 days

Credit sales

Measures efficiency of a firm in collecting debts owed to it
- Inventory Turnover: Cost of sales

Average stock

Measures efficiency of a firm in sales
- Total debt/Equity: Long term debt + Current Liabilities

Shareholders’ funds

Shows the extent of leverage used by a firm
- Net profit margin: Net profit (Earnings after tax) * 100%

Sales

Measures a firm’s Continue reading...

1. The effect of the portfolio on risk of a security
The diversification effects on a portfolio listing are based on the reduction of portfolio risk which creates the impression of imperfect correlations as compared to asset return pairs. It is rather crucial as correlations remain rather independent of the portfolio’s rate of return. Therefore, portfolio risk is extensively reduced while at the same time ensuring that the rate of return is not compromised (Oberuc, 2003). For instance, if several low-correlated assets are combined in order to create a pronounced high risk-adjusted return which capitalizes on portfolio improvement, Continue reading...

Introduction

The trade-off between risk and return is an always been a concerned for the analysts and researchers and the concepts related to the same are extremely effective and essential. Financial Management is one of the largest fields which have different dominating options embedded in it. Financial Management is a combination of two things that are managing and finance. It means that the management of the financial function is more than essential and effective for the sake of the organization (Elton, Gruber, Brown & Goetzmann, n.d.).
The concept of risk and return has number of aspects as well in which different Continue reading...

A brand can be defined as the term, name, symbol, design or other features that identifies the goods or services of a seller as distinct from those provided by other sellers. In the past, branding had been used to differentiate a person’s cattle from others people’s by use of a distinctive symbol that was burned into the skin of the animal using a hot iron stamp and this branding was adopted in business, advertising and marketing. An example of a modern brand is the Coca Cola which is owned by the Coca-Cola Company.
Brands are usually the Continue reading...

Executive Summary

The beginning investment portfolio was composed of ten Dow Jones Industrial 30 stocks that totaled an investment of $498,598. A hedging tactic was applied in order to have the capacity of liquidating the put options at prices that are close or in the money on the present Dow 30 portfolio. This tactic is applied in order to reduce the potential of risk in the event that the market goes flat or in the declining direction during the next year and a half. The selling of the put requests against the value of the beginning investment at strike values Continue reading...

During the Co-operative Education, I focused on demonstrating competency inn BBUS learning goals. These goals include being self directed and a reflective learner and being knowledgeable in the field of study. In addition, there was need to develop critical enquiries capability and effective problem solving. Further, the aim of the practicum was to make me think ethically on issues that affect my field of study. Furthermore, the practicum attachment had the objective of developing collaboration and my ability to work together with all those in the field. These include bosses, clients, colleagues and other stakeholders in the industry. Lastly, Continue reading...

Introduction

Project portfolio management has become a key aspect of managing organizations and ensuring that the organizations goals and objectives are attained. It has also been used as a concept to solve most of the organizational issues. Project portfolio management is defined as the concept that deals in the selection as well as the management of a particular set of projects that enable the organization to meet its set objectives (Gliedman ,2002).. It has been noted that the particular specifics of the project portfolio management are vary from one organization to another.

In the recent years project portfolio management Continue reading...

Introduction

Finance and accounts are two different fields from each other and both of these fields are important from different standpoints in particular. Accounting is the name of recording the day to day transactions while finance is the name of articulating the accounting data and utilize them at a place from where the likelihood of earning would be on a higher scale.
The field of finance is full of different concepts and models and among them, the name of investment management is one of them. Investment management is basically a concept in which the investment of an individual or a Continue reading...

Introduction

Management of portfolio always gives a good reasoning to the investor to park their money in their stocks accordingly, and with a flare of earnings. There are hundreds of thousands of investors who get benefited from the management of portfolio (Swensen, p.45). Managing portfolio with optimization of the best available options to invest is a great thing on which the entire productivity of an investor would depend heavily. All the investors in the world are trying to mitigating their direct cost and risk in a perfect manner, because they have the idea in their mind that managing of risk Continue reading...

There is no doubt that Amherst functions as a private health care institution. Speculations advanced by this literature review points toward unfolding the extent it is a private institution. This researcher’s assumption is that the extent to which Amherst is classified a private health care institution depends on an assessment concerning risks and returns exploring concepts pertaining to operations, performance, and talent.

The London School of Economics researchers confirmed that there were distinct factors relating management practices to outcomes as it pertains to financial returns in any health care institution (Dorgan et.al, 2009).Therefore, the ability to integrate Continue reading...

Introduction

Value of a risk (VaR) is widely defined as probabilistic measure of market risk. Financial analysts use VaR to predict the future value of the market portfolio. Previous scholars who invented this idea of VaR did not use the name value of a risk. However, names like dollar at risk (DaR), income at risk (IaR), capital at risk (CaR), and earning at risk were used in place of VaR. The name ‘value at risk’ originated within JP Morgan before 1985.
Historically, value of a risk was developed though two parallel line. One of them was called Portfolio theory and Continue reading...

Introduction

The initial step in constructing Mr. Donothing portfolio is to determine the appropriate asset allocation. To begin with is by ascertaining Mr. Donothing financial position and investment goals. The most important factor to start with is Mr. Donothing age, available opportunity of growing his investments as well as the amount of capital that may be required for future capital needs. At the age of 55 Mr. Donothing will be planning of paying his child’s education. Another factor to consider is his risk tolerance. Would he be willing to risk some money for a possibility of greater returns? Mr. Continue reading...

Scenario Description

Obviously, investment decisions are the most important decisions taken by an organization or an individual in different span of time (Elton et al, p.56). An effective investment decision can be extremely essential for the sake of an individual, but proper analysis deem necessary to accomplish this action. Most of the investors recommended to use a portfolio for the investment, as it is the best method from which an individual can enhance their yield or return and mitigating the risk accordingly. In this analysis, it is requested to make an investment memorandum by using three different steps. It is required Continue reading...

Real Estate Securities, Portfolio Construction and Down-side Risk Analysis

Securitized Real Estate Market In Malaysia:
The securitized real estate market in Malaysia is dominated by listed property companies and the REIT(Real Estate Investment Trusts). Since the real estate market is still emerging, the size of the securitized real estate market is small and most of the research findings on the securitized real estate market of Malaysia have indicated that the securitized real estate market is an ineffective investment and offers unfavorable return. Hence, considering the poor performance of the Malaysian securitized real estate market, Malaysian Government has taken several steps to improve the performance of the real Continue reading...

Answer)

The Malaysian Economy which is known to be a robust economy with supportive government reforms, talented workforce and newly developed infrastructure. The country has turned out to be an attractive investment destination for the not only domestic but international investors. So the Sya Suka Berada di Sini- ‘’ I Like it Here’’ phrase is quite suited for referring to Malaysian Stock Exchange.

- Money Market Investment
- Stock Market investment

Money Market Investment:

This region of investment opportunity is a risk less investment where the investors, invest their funds in highly liquid financial instruments of commercial banks primarily in Saving Bank Accounts, Fixed Continue reading...

Introduction

Investors prefer safer to riskier stocks since it provides a perceived security and there alternative to a risky investment or stock is the incentive in form of higher returns. In depth, the market prices are to be set such that investors expect riskier stocks to deliver higher returns although the higher returns are not to be viewed as dependable since if the risky stocks are to be counted on to deliver higher returns than the safer investments or stocks then they are to be considered not risky like demonstrated (LAOPODIS 2012). This expected high returns are valuated so as Continue reading...

About the company

Apple Inc. is an American multinational enterprise that design and develop consumer electronics, provides paid multimedia services and sells software. Headquartered in California, the company was founded in 1976. The consumer electronics of the company includes, IPhone. I pad, IPod and MacBook, while the paid multimedia service is known as ITunes. The company trades on NASDAQ under the ticker sign of ‘AAPL’.

Rational for selection

The core objective of this paper is to analyze the financial performance of Apple Inc. which has always been in good news for introducing innovative products into the market. Although the company had ruled the multimedia and Continue reading...

Summary of Chapters

Chapter 7: Mathematics of Investing

One of the return measures used includes compounding. Compounding can be done arithmetically or geometrically. In order for one to determine whether to use arithmetic compounding or geometric compounding one has to take into account the future value of what is to be estimated (Evensky, Horan, and Robinson 122). Arithmetic compounding is best used when determining the estimate of the anticipated future return for the following year when there is no other information. The geometric compounding is best applied when determining the anticipated return over many periods.

Covariance

This is applied when investments in a Continue reading...

Quantitative Methods

Holding period return
Holding period return is the total returns received from holding a particular investment portfolio of assets. The holding period return rate usually calculated as the total sum of all income and capital gains of the investments divided by the investment value at the beginning of the trading period being measured (Hallerbach, 2003). It is a very basic way used to measure the rate of return obtained from a particular investment. Therefore, its calculation is based on a unit-value-invested rather than on a time basis. This, however, makes it difficult to provide a comparison of returns on Continue reading...

FP Fixed

Introduction

This paper relates an analysis of stock price behavior over the period of time from the 21st of October to the 17th of November. The aim of the paper is to trace an effect made on the stock price by the changes in markets.
The markets are affected by a number of economic and non-economic factors that sometimes cannot be predicted. Among the most popular factors influencing markets are: market sentiment, growth expectations, valuation, momentum, and central bank activity. Actually, any economic factor or company news may influence stock price.
A portfolio of five stocks was analyzed. The Continue reading...

A diversifiable risk refers to risk that an investor can eliminate if he held an efficient portfolio while a non-diversifiable risk refers to risk that still present in all adequately diversified portfolios. The investor, therefore, seeks to eliminate the diversifiable risk by adding more assets to the portfolio.

a) A substantial, unexpected increase in inflation is a non-diversifiable risk. This is because a substantial, unexpected increase in inflation will affect all assets that an investor can invest in. Therefore, the risk cannot be eliminated by adding more assets to the portfolio.
b) A major recession in the U.S is a non-diversifiable risk. This is because, a major recession in the U.S will affect all assets that an investor can invest in the U.S. Continue reading...

Abstract

The Nelson – Siegel – Svensson model is one of the preferred methods by which investors determine the value of bonds in the long run and thus make informed guesses as to the viability of each investment option. It is an accurate method of prediction when an investment portfolio needs to be set up. In this paper, by using the Nelson – Siegel – Svensson process, an attempt will be made to inform investors like to the best option for a fixed income portfolio. The paper would demonstrate how the process is to be used and applied to the data related to treasury Continue reading...