Chat with us, powered by LiveChat

Examine seminar materials for ideas on how to choose fixed income and equity instruments. Consider Modern portfolio theory and Capital assets Pricing Model reasons when choosing stocks and bonds.

Instructions for assessment

The assessment for this module relates to a single coursework submission (in a maximum of 3000 words), requiring you to complete a small project based on your choice of an investment portfolio.

Investment portfolio exercise:

You have £1,000,000 to invest. You should study the markets and the available financial products and then select a portfolio of between 5 and 10 individual products/assets. The products that you include in the portfolio may be fixed income, equity, ETF or cash in any combination, although all must be listed in a publication where they can be tracked and measured.

The portfolio should be monitored, analysed, re-balanced and reported upon. The report should contain an analysis of your chosen investments with a detailed reasoning for your selection. You are expected to consider all the risk factors involved and also to give a brief assessment of your expectations.

Note that this is an assessment of your ability to thoughtfully construct and justify a portfolio and your ability to report and analyse its performance professionally. You should do external research and explain your answers.
Word limit: 3000

The actual performance of the portfolio will not be a factor in the marking of your work i.e. you will not get more marks for a portfolio which makes more money.

Instructions for setting initial assessment portfolio during reading week:

• Read the assignment.

• Identify assets allocation structure of your portfolio based on the principles in chapter 28 and test you completed in week 1.

• Examine seminar materials for ideas on how to choose fixed income and equity instruments. Consider Modern portfolio theory and Capital assets Pricing Model reasons when choosing stocks and bonds

• Create portfolio using www.portfoliovisualizer.com (https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/optimize-portfolio )during reading week. The portfolio should consist with bond, ETF, stocks, cash, cash equivalent instruments

• The portfolio should consist from minimum 5 to maximum 10 assets.
• The portfolio period should be approximately 5 years (from 2016)
• Take into consideration monetary policy and macroeconomic outlook of the key markets (UK, US, emerging markets) which you believe best corresponds with your investment objectives
• We suggest rebalancing your portfolio if you believe some stocks performs poorly

Assessment Criteria (see rubric for further details).

Your report should address following topics:

1. Introduction: setting the terms of the exercise (25%)

a) Investment objective based on investment banking practice. Address your investor expectations and constraints;
b) Demonstrate how your investment policy and framework (asset allocation decisions in to Equities, Bonds, etc.) match with your investor profiling;
c) Market view: discussion of broad economic trends and monetary policy outlook that are relevant to your universe of assets and which underpin your investment rationale.

2. Individual holdings (40%)

Identify between 5 to 10 holdings.

a) Highlight why you bought, hold or sell your holdings.
Your investment decisions should be supported by relevant traditional investment theories (Modern portfolio theory, Capital assets Pricing Model, Gordon Growth Model, “Comparables” P/E ratio).

b) Reflect upon your investment and identify relevant behavioural concepts that could be used to explain your own irrationality and help you take advantage of market irrationality in your investment strategies.

3. Portfolio performance over the monitored time period (25%)

a) Analyse portfolio performance against the benchmark. Using appropriate risk and returns measures and ratios.

b) Conclusion based on portfolio performance. Did it perform in line with the initial rationale? If not, what factors influenced it that appear to have been different or unexpected?