Duration: 3 days
- Global Asset Classes
- Strategic and Dynamic Asset Allocation
- Constructing Optimal Portfolios
- Indexation and Core-Satellite Investing
- Managing Surplus Risk
- Liability Driven Investing
- Risk Budgeting and Portable Alpha
The objective of this seminar is to give you a good understanding of state-of-the-art methods and tools
for constructing and managing investment portfolios.
First, we explain the investment process and we discuss how the overall investment objectives and
policies should be formulated within a general asset liability framework and how these policies should
be reflected in the choice of benchmarks and in the delegation of relative or absolute return
mandates.
We then take a closer look at the various traditional and alternative asset classes and explain how
funds can be allocated to these asset classes using the optimization techniques of modern and
post-modern portfolio theories. Methods include Bayesian Analysis, efficient frontier resampling, and
the Black-Litterman asset allocation approach.
We also explain how dynamic asset allocation strategies such as “constant mix”, “constant proportion
portfolio insurance”, “contingent immunization” and “option-based portfolio insurance” can be
implemented to obtain the optimal risk-return profile, or to manage surplus risk, under various market
conditions.
Further, we explain how “indexation” used for “passive” management and how this strategy can be
enhanced through a core/satellite approach that leaves room for active management strategies to add
returns beyond the benchmark indices.
After that, we explain how to manage “surplus risk” and how the increasingly popular “Risk Budgeting”
technique can be used to allocate “risk units” to optimize the risk-adjusted returns across managers
and asset classes. Finally, we explain the increasingly popular concept of “liability driven investing”
(LDI) that focuses on considering risk on a relative basis versus liabilities when making asset
allocation decisions and that measures investment success as the ability to meet future cash payments.
Day One
09.00 - 09.15 Welcome and Introduction
09.15 - 12.00 Asset Allocation and the Investment Management Process
- Introduction to Asset Allocation
- The Case for a ”Global” Approach
- The Investment Management Process
- An Asset-Liability Framework for IM
Global Asset Classes and their Characteristics
-
The Global Asset Markets
- Equity Markets
- Fixed Income
- Emerging Markets
- Commodities
-
Funds and Trusts
- Unit Trusts
- Investment Trusts
- Exchange-Trade Funds
- Private Equity and Hedge Funds
12.00 - 13.00 Lunch
13.00 - 16.30 Strategic Asset Allocation and Portfolio Construction
-
”Classic” Mean/Variance Optimization
- Risk/return forecasting
- Shortfall-optimization
- Lower Partial Moments optimization
-
Dealing with the Problems in the Classic Optimization Approach
- Time-varying volatility
- Illiquid investments
- Life cycle investing
- Portfolio resampling
- Exercises
Day Two
09.00 - 09.15 Recap
09.15 - 12.00 Strategic Asset Allocation and Portfolio Construction (Continued)
- Bayesian Analysis and Portfolio Choice
- Resampling the Efficient Frontier
- The Black-Litterman Asset Allocation Model
- Scenario Optimization
- Exercises
12.00 - 13.00 Lunch
13.00 - 14.30 Dynamic Asset Allocation Strategies
- Objectives of DAA
-
Presentation and Evaluation of Dynamic Strategies
- Buy-and-hold
- Constant mix
- Constant proportion
- Option-based portfolio insurance
- Exercises
14.30 - 16.30 Indexation and Core-Satellite Investing
- Traditional Benchmark-relative Optimization
- Multiple Benchmark Optimization
- Tracking Error efficiency vs. Mean-Variance Efficiency
-
The Core-Satellite Approach to Investing
- Building a low-risk, low-cost core
- Pursuing higher returns with active funds and individual positions
- Exercises
Day Three
09.00 - 09.15 Recap
09.15 - 12.00 Risk Budgeting
- Risk Allocation vs. Asset Allocation
- Active Risk vs. Passive Risk
- The Concept of “Portable Alpha”
-
Constructing Optimal Portfolios under Risk Budgeting Constraints
- Defining objective function and constraints
- Maximizing the Information Ratio
12.00 - 13.00 Lunch
13.00 - 16.30 Surplus Risk Management and Liability Driven Investing
-
Surplus Risk Management
- Defining the Surplus in an ALM Framework
- Managing “Surplus-at-Risk”
-
Liability Driven Investing
- Considering risk on a relative basis versus liabilities when making asset allocation
decisions
- Measuring investment success as the ability to meet future cash payments
- Exercises
Evaluation and Termination of the Seminar