On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Explain Modern Portfolio Theory and the Mean-Variance Framework.

2. Create an Investment Portfolio and test its ability to achieve Investment Objectives

3. Analyse Core Asset classes (Equities and Fixed Income Securities) based on their characteristics and performance over economic and business cycles.

4. Evaluate Non-Core Asset classes and Alternative Investments, and their relationship with Core Asset classes in a portfolio setting.

5. Understand issues in portfolio construction, its management and its performance.

Required Textbook:
Two textbooks are required for this course. Both textbooks are available online from the library and University of Adelaide students can access these through the Library.

Multi-Asset Investing : A Practical Guide to Modern Portfolio Management
by Yoram Lustig
Publisher: Harriman House
Date: 2012-12-13

and



Suggested Text:
The following textbook was used in previous semesters and is a good reference textbook.

Running Money: Professional Portfolio Management
by Stewart, S. D., Prios, C. D., and  J. C. Heisler, 1st Edition, published by McGraw-Hill

Students are encouraged to stay abreast of global financial issues. The Australian Financial Review and finance commentary on the ABC Australia, Bloomberg and CNBC networks are excellent sources of current financial news and should be referred to on a regular basis. The internet is also abundantly populated with all aspects of this course, and should be used as well.

Students will use the Refinitive (previouslyThomson Reuters) EIKON database to access capital market data.

This course will utilize the online learning environment in a variety of ways. 

All lectures and tutorial recordings will be made available at the begining of the week. Students can clarify any issues during the tutroials as well as by posting their questions on the Discussion Board. Discussion Board will be the primary source of online interface between students and the academic staff. All questions will be answered within 2 working days. We had tremendous success in using the Discussion Board last semester and students felt that it helped them in their assignments, test and examination preparation. 

Fortnightly online tutorial quizzes (starting in week 4) will help students check their undersatnding of the course material. Two tests and the final/replacement examinations will also be held online.

Please feel free to use emails for personal issues and they will be answered in 2 working days. You will be asked to post course related questions on the discussion board and everyone is encouraged to join the discussion. These discussions are extremely useful and will help everyone in the course. For any urgent matter, please contact the lecturer-in-charge (syed.ali@adelaide.edu.au) and a zoom meeting can be arranged to discuss.
 
Lecture material such as presentation, articles, tutorial questions and lecture/tutorial recording will be available on MyUni. Brief tutorial answers will also be made available in the week following the tutorial.

The approach in this course is to first establish the theoretical foundations and then to build upon these to understand portfolio construction, implementation and management for an investor. This will be done through lectures, tutorials, a test, a group assignment, and a final examination.

The University expects full-time students (i.e. those taking 12 units per semester) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. This means that you are expected to commit approximately 9 hours for a three-unit course of private study outside of your regular classes.

Students in this course are expected to attend all lectures throughout the semester plus one tutorial class each week. If a student is unable to attend a lecture, it is the student's responsibility to watch the lecture recording prior to attending the tutorial. The student must allocate atleast 2 hours for this activity on a weekly basis.

Week 1: The Return Objective (Lustig - Chapter 1) and Benchmarks (Lustig - Chapter 2). Braeburn University Case study (Stewart et al –
pages 43 to 50)

Week 2: The Risk Objectives (Lustig – Chapter 3). Braeburn University Case study (Stewart et al – pages 43 to 50)

Week 3: Relationship between Risk and Return. (Lustig – Chapter 5) and Investment Constraints (Lustig – Chapter 6)

Week 4: Strategic Asset Allocation (Lustig – Chapter 7), Historical Performance of Asset Classes (Lustig – Chapter 8) and Combining Asset Classes (Lustig – Chapter 9)

Week 5: Diversification (Lustig – Chapter10) and Capital Market Assumptions (Lustig – Chapter 11)

Week 6: Test week - No lecture – Tutorials will continue as per schedule

Week 7: Optimization (Lustig – Chapter 12)

Week 8: Risk Parity Portfolios (Braga - Chapter 3 and 4)

Week 9:  Risk Budgeting and Risk Management (Lustig - Chapter 27 and 28)

Week 10: Alternative Investments (Stewart et al. – Chapter 11)

Week 11: Portfolio Review and Performance Attribution (Lustig – Chapter 30 and 31)

Week 12: Review of Course

This course draws upon previous knowledge from Business Finance I and Business Valuation II (and Financial Economic II). Students must have passed both courses to be sucessful in this course. Additionally, students may need to review both courses if they have scored only a "Pass" in either of these two courses.

This course is a single pass course. Successful completion of this course will require students to keep up to date with the assigned material. This means that students should have had browsed the assigned chapter and the power point presentation for that topic (details of each topic is avilable in MyUni) prior to attending the lecture. Students should review the lecture recordings and get better understanding by reading the assigned chapter after the lecture to prepare for the tutorial. It is expected that students would have prepared the tutorial questions prior to attending their assigned tutorial class. This will allow students to have a deeper understanding of the topic and have a healthy discussion in the tutorial class. Brief tutorial answers will also be made available in the week following the tutorial week.

This course includes a group assignment. Group assignments can be completed in groups of 2 - 4 students, and no groups can have more than 4 students. Group assignments allow students to be able to create a solution to an assigned problem and test their solution using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. It is expected that each member of a group will be able to leverage their own particular expertise, as well as that of the other members in the group. Groups will be created by the students themselves and groups may discuss their assignment with tutors during assignment consultation by making appointments.

Finally, this course requires students to be able to access historical capital market data through the EIKON database for their assignment.

Due to the current COVID-19 situation modified arrangements have been made to assessments to facilitate remote learning and teaching. Assessment details provided here reflect recent updates.

Assessment Task	Task Type	Due	Weighting	test covers topics	Learning Outcome
Online Test	Individual	Week 6	20%	1,2,3	1, 2, 3
Tutorial Submission	Individual	Weeks 8-12	5%		3, 4, 5
Assignment	Group	Week 11	50%		1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Online Final Exam	Individual	Exam Period	25%		1, 2, 3, 4, 5
TOTAL			100%

The approach in this course is to first establish the theoretical foundations and then to build upon these to understand portfolio construction, implementation and management for an institutional investor. This will be done through lectures, tutorials, a test, a group assignment, and a final examination. Tests and Final/Replacement examination will be closed book (no reference material allowed). Assessments from previous semester(s) cannot be redeemed.

This course will feature a group assignment and will require the ability to access the Thomson Reuters Eikon Databse.

The assessment components are as follows:

· (20%) Test: 1 hour MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions) test. This is a closed book test.

· (5%) Tutorial Participation and submission

. (25%) Group Assignment

· (50%) Final/Replacement Exam: 3 hour exam as per examination schedule. This is a closed book examination.

Further details will be provided on MyUni.