Active Portfolio Management & Asset Allocation

Building the equity allocation

• Asset allocation and other portfolio construction disciplines

• The search for 'alpha' and the importance of information ratios

• The emergence of SMART Beta

• Performance Measurement and Attribution

• Individual investor behaviour

• Asset class characteristics

• Integrating alternative assets with 'traditional' asset classes

Building the Fixed Income Allocation

• Overview

• Type of bond

• Type of issuer

• Risks associated with fixed income

• Emerging Market Fixed income

• Hedge ratio

• Asset SWAP’s

• Yield components

• Duration hedging

• Convexity

• Fixed income attribution

Hedge funds

• The key attributes of hedge funds

• The case for investing in hedge funds

• An overview of the trading techniques and tactics - understanding short selling, leverage and derivatives

• Hedge fund styles and strategies

Risk management

• Measuring risk

• Types of risk

• The key ratios and measures

• Skewness and Kurtosis

Private equity

• Definition of Private Equity

• The main sources of Private Equity

• The case for Private Equity

• Constructing the Private Equity portfolio

• Monitoring the portfolio and measuring performance

• Measuring correlation with public markets

• Current trends in the market place

Property

• Gaining exposure to the asset class

• Performance measurement and benchmarks

• Correlation

Commodities

• Including commodities in the portfolio

Structured products

• What are structured products?

• Foreign exchange products

• Certificates

                 - Index

                 - Basket

                 - Comparison with mutual funds

                 - Covered warrants

• Capital guarantee and protection products

                - Vanilla products

                - Portfolio insurance

• Maximum return products

                - Discount certificates

                - Reverse convertibles

• Derivatives

• Exchange Traded Funds – tools for tactical asset allocation

• Ad hoc solutions or part of portfolio construction?