Everything Flashcards
How do you measure a manager’s performance?
- Sharpe
- Treynor
- Information ratio
- Jensen’s alpha
How do you calculate the Sharpe Ratio?
(Rp-Rf)/stddevp
How do you find the Treynor ratio?
(Rp-Rf)/beta
How do you calculate Jensen’s alpha?
(Ri-rf) - (RF + beta(rm-rf)) = alpha
Rp - (RF + beta(rm-rf)) = alpha
What is the definition of asset management?
A (professional) asset manager makes the decisions regarding the client(s)’ portfolio according to the clients’ needs
Such an activity is rewarded by a fee (management fee)
What other management styles are out there?
Collective management (through collective investment programs)
Separate accounts or Individual management under (discretionary) investment mandates
How does collective management work?
Investors pool capital.
The company and their analysts made choices on how to run the portfolio.
The investors take a % of the returns, proportional to the % of their investment
What are the main benefits for small investors who invest through collective management?
Record keeping and administration
Diversification and divisibility
Professional management
Lower transaction costs
Explain “Record keeping and administration “ as a benefit of collective management?
They issue periodic status reports
Keeping track of capital gains distributions, dividends, investments and redemptions
Reinvestment of dividends and interest income for the shareholders
Explain “Diversification and divisibility” as a benefit of collective management?
By pooling their money, investment companies allows investor to hold fractional shares of many securities.
They can act and diversify like a large shareholder even that they as individual investors cannot.
Explain “Professional management” as a benefit of collective management?
Due to its scale, the investment company can hire full time security analysts and portfolio managers to make better investment decisions compared to individual investors.
Explain “Lower transaction costs” as a benefit of collective management?
Because they trade large blocks of securities, they can achieve substantial savings on brokerage fees and commissions.
What are the two retail clients of asset managers?
Households
High-Net-Worth Individual (HNWI)
What does HNWI stand for?
High-Net-Worth Individual
What are the institutional clients of asset managers?
Insurance companies
Pension Funds
Banks
Others: (foundations, charities, governments, central banks, etc.)
What is a custodian in the fund industry?
An actor on the fund industry who is responsible for securing and managing the securities held within a mutual fund.
custodian also typically offers trade settlements, foreign exchange transactions, and tax services for its clients.
Who holds the securities of a mutual fund and why?
the securities owned by the fund are held with the custodian and not directly with the fund itself. This is done to reduce the risk of fraud.
What is a Distributor in the fund industry?
Mutual fund distributor is an individual or entity that helps investors to buy and sell mutual funds
How do you calculate the NAV?
𝑁𝐴𝑉= (𝐴𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑡𝑠 − 𝐿𝑖𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑠)/(𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑂𝑢𝑡𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔)
What does NAV Stand for?
Net Asset Value, aka. the value of the share.
This is “comparable” to the share price of buying equity.
How do we calculate the Rate of Return?
𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑅𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛= (𝑁𝐴V1−𝑁𝐴𝑉0+𝐼𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠)/𝑁𝐴𝑉0
What are open end funds?
These funds are open to have new investors & open to have investors leave.
What happens when a new investor joins an open fund? And when it leaves?
The fund issue new shares to new investors (that wants to enter the fund)
Investors can redeem (sell back their shares to the fund) their shares at NAV at any point in time
Why do open funds have more cash on them than usual?
Meaning that they always have to have some cash on them incase people want to redeem their shares at the same moment
Explain open ended funds with cake analogy.
The portfolio is a cake.
And with new shareholders they need to make more cake with the newly gotten equity.
The shareholders are entitled to walk away with their pieces of the cake.
What are closed-end funds?
A fund that does an IPO to gather capital and then it does not redeem or issue shares.
What happens when a new investor joins an closed fund? And when it leaves?
investors in closed end funds must sell their shares to other investors to exit
shares of closed end funds usually traded on exchange by brokers
Explain a closed fund with the cake analogy
Either you were there to bake the cake, or you will have to pay someone to get their cake slice.
The closed funds have one cake and it never grows from external equity after the IPO (besides the returns of the investments).
If the management fees are bigger than the returns the cake becomes smaller.
The stocks listed are valued for 1 cake piece.
Why are closed end funds traded at a discount compared to their Net Asset Value?
They account for manager fees
Active management’s goal is to outperform benchmarks with a focus on:
Strategic asset allocation: making a portfolio w good assets & weights -> taking into account investor objective
Tactical asset allocation: timing the short term adjustments
Security selection: Find undervalued securities
What is an actively managed fund?
As the name implies the fund actively buys and sells on the market to make strategic allocations, attempting to exploit mispricing, with the desire to outperform the market returns.
What is an passively managed fund?
Focus on holding an efficient portfolio
No attempt of market timing or security selection
What are the different types of funds?
Mutual Funds
Commingled Funds
ETFs
Funds of Funds
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS)
Hedge Funds
Private Equity/Debt
What are mutual funds?
the common name for open-end investment companies
Accounting for roughly 87% of the investment company assets in the U.S.
A management company usually manage several funds.
What are the different investment policies mutual funds have?
Fixed income
Equity
Combined
Index funds
What are the sub sections of mutual funds focused on “Fixed income”?
Money market funds
Bond funds
What are the sub sections of mutual funds focused on “Equity”?
Equity funds
Sector funds
International funds
What are the sub sections of mutual funds focused on “Combined”?
Balanced funds
Asset allocation funds
What are money market funds?
They are a substitute to holding cash, but offers some “risk-free” return.
investments in short horizon fixed income investments with low risk exposure
Seeing money market funds want to be a substitute to cash the funds’ investments should therefore have low exposure to:
Credit risk
Market risk
Liquidity risk
Why invests on money market funds?
They are held by retail investors, Corporations and institutional investors.
Who are the biggest players of money market funds?
USA => 82.5% of the total market with 5 Billion
EU=> 9.2% of the total assets
What are the types of money market?
Government money funds
Prime money funds
Municipal money funds
Explain what a “Government money funds” is.
(W context of money markets)
Invests in short term government issued securities
-Cash
-Treasuries
-Repurchase agreements (usually from the central bank for 24-48 hours)
Explain what a “Prime money funds” is.
(W context of money markets)
Invests in short term non-government debt
-Commercial papers (CPs, unsecured short term corporate debt)
-Certificate of deposits (CDs, fixed period bank deposit)
-But also some government securities and cash to ensure liquidity in case of redemptions
Explain what a “Municipal money funds” is.
(W context of money markets)
Invest in short term papers issued by municipalities
What is the proportion of money market fund types?
82% are Government money funds
16% Prime money funds
2% Municipal money funds
What are bond funds? And what are the different specialization?
Bond funds invests in fixed income securities.
Issuer types
Maturities
Risk profile
What are the possible securities purchased by a bond fund focused on “Issuer types”?
Corporate bonds
Mortgage-backed securities
Government bonds
Municipal bonds
What are the possible securities purchased by a bond fund focused on “Maturities”?
Short (1-3 years)
Intermediate (3-10 years)
Long-term (>10 years)
What are the possible securities purchased by a bond fund focused on “Risk profile”?
Low risk funds (>BB+)
High-yield (Junk, <BBB-)
What are Equity funds?
Invests primarily in stocks.
but needs to keep some funds in liquid assets (money market securities) to provide liquidity to meet potential redemptions.
Usually around 4-5% of Assets under Management.
What are the different focuses of Equity funds?
Cash flows
–Current income funds
–Growth funds
Firm size
–Large/Mid/small cap
Geography
Sector
What are Income Equity funds?
Focuses more on current income instead of capital gains.
They invest in stable companies in firms with high dividend yield (annual dividend/price) supplying steady dividend streams.
investments of the fund would have cash flows in the near future (dividends)
What are Growth Equity funds?
Willing to forego current income for capital appreciation stemming from growth potential (cash flows in the future).
This leads growth funds to invest in younger, riskier firms in the earlier stages of their life-cycles.
What are Sector Funds?
mutual funds specialized in an industry
What are the different types of international funds?
Global, Regional, Emerging countries
What are the characteristics of a balanced fund?
Holds a mix of equity and bonds in stable proportions
They are designed to be an investor’s entire portfolio
What are the two types of lifecycle funds?
Aggressive strategy (for young investors)
less risky for older investors
What is the difference between balanced funds and flexible funds
The balanced funds hold a stable mix of equiyty and bonds whereas flexible funds try to time the market in their asset allocation & and risk profile
What are the two types of allocation
Static allocation (stable mix of equity and debt)
targeted maturity funds
What does the excess return of a flexible fund depend on?
The manager’s skill and luck
What are ETFs?
You trade index portfolios like regular stock
What is the difference between mutual funds and ETFs
An ETF can be sold at any time unlike a mutual fund which can only be sold at the end of the day when NAV is calculated
Are ETFs closed end or open end funds?
They are closed end for smaller investors and open end for big investors
What is the stucture of an ETF?
large institutional investors receive creation units (from the unit) and then give elementary units to the retail investors
What are some different types of ETF?give examples
Actively managed
Leveraged
Industry-based
International
What are the advantages of ETFs?
Can be sold short
Continuous trading
Sold thru brokers (lower management fees)
Disadvantages of ETFs
Transaction costs
Market prices can deviate from NAV which can swamp the ETF’s cost advantages
Differences between closed-end funds and ETF
Closed-end funds trade at a discount while ETFs trade close to their NAV
Closed end funds are actively managed while ETFs often track the market
Closed end funds report quarterly, ETFs need daily disclosure
Types of alternative investements
Hedge funds
PE
Real Estate
Commodities