Portfolio Construction (10.27.24) Flashcards
Correlation between equities and hyperinflation
Negative
Negative screening
(ESG) approach that consists of excluding investments in certain sectors, companies, or practices
Positive-screening
Including sectors, companies, practices, etc.
Best in class approach
(ESG) implementation approach that seeks to identify the most favorable companies in an industry based on ESG considerations
Goal of ESG integration
Reduce financial risks and/or enhance financial returns by identifying and valuing risks or opportunities that are not typically identified and valued
Thematic Investing
Investing in companies with positive exposure to ESG mega trends
Examples of thematic investing
clean energy, green technology, sustainable agriculture, gender diversity, or affordable housing
Impact investing
Seeks to achieve targeted social or environmental objectives along with measurable financial returns through engagement with a company or by direct investment in projects or companies
4 Roles of Equities in Portfolio
1) Capital appreciation
2) Dividend Income
3) Diversification with other asset classes
4) Hedge against inflation
Optional stock dividends
Type of dividend in which shareholders may elect to receive either cash or new shares, option can be sold
Securities Lending
A form of collaterized lending that may be used to generate income for portfolios
Stock lending
Securities lending involving the transfer of equities
Dividend Capture
Trading strategy, where equity PM purchases stocks just before their ex-dividend dates, holds these stocks through ex-dividend date to earn the right to receive the dividend, and subsequently sells the shares
High-water mark
A measure that reflects the fund’s maximum value as of a performance fee payment date net of fees
5 Costs associated with owning and managing an equity portfolio
1) Management fees
2) Performance fees
3) Administration fees
4) Marketing and Distribution Costs
5) Trading costs
Buffering
Establishing ranges around breakpoints that define whether a stock belongs in one index or another
Packeting
Splitting stock positions into multiple parts
3 Advantages of market cap weighted index
1) Mean variance efficient
2) Reflects a strategy’s investment capacity
3) Liquidity weighted index
Most common form of market-cap weighting
Free-float weighting - adjust each constituent’s shares outstanding for closely held shares that are not generally available to the investing publicP
Price-weighted index
Weight of each stock is its price per share divided by the sum of all share prices in the index (DJI and Nikkei 225)
3 Roles of Fixed-Income securities in portfolios
1) Diversification (low correlation with equities)
2) Regular cash flows
3) Inflation-hedging potential (inflation-linked bonds)
For an index to become the benchmark for an equity investment strategy, what are the 3 initial requirements
1) rules based
2) transparent
3) investable
Two broad categories of fixed-income mandates
1) Liability based mandates
2) Total return mandates
Liability-based mandates definition and 4 types of
Mandates managed to match or cover expected liability payments (future cash outflows) with future projected cash inflows, also called asset/liability management (ALM)
1) Cash-flow matching
2) Duration matching
3) Derivatives overlay
4) Contingent immunization
Cash flow matching
Immunization approach that attempts to ensure that all future liability payouts are matched precisely by cash flows from bonds or fixed-income derivatives
Duration matching
Immunization approach based on the duration of assets and liabilities. Ideally, the liabilities being matched (the liability portfolio) and the portfolio of assets (the bond portfolio) should be affected similarly by a change in interest rates
Contingent immunization
Hybrid approach that combines immunization with an active management approach when the asset portfolio’s value exceeds the present value of the liability portfolio
Total Return Mandates definition and 3 types
Managed to either track or outperform a market-weighted fixed-income benchmark, such as the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index
1) Pure indexing
2) Enhanced indexing
3) Active management
Pure indexing
Attempts to replicate a bond index as closely as possible, targeting zero active return and zero active risk
Active return
Return on a portfolio minus the return on the portfolio’s benchmark
Active risk
Annualized standard deviation of active returns
Tracking risk (tracking error)
The standard deviation of the differences between a portfolio’s returns and its benchmarks returns
Enhanced indexing approach
Maintains a close link to the benchmark but attempts to generate a modest amount of outperformance relative to the benchmark
Active management
Portfolio management approach that allows risk factor mismatches relative to a benchmark index causing potentially significant return differences between the active portfolio and the underlying benchmark
Macauley Duration (MacDur)
Weighted average of the time to receipt of the bond’s promised payments, where the weights are the shares of the full price that correspond to each of the bond’s promised future payments
Modified Duration (ModDur)
MacDur / (1+Yield per period), which estimates percentage price change (including accrued interest) for a bond given a change in its yield to maturity
Effective Duration
Sensitivity of the bond’s price to a change in a benchmark yield curve (using a parallel shift in the benchmark yield curve
Essential to the measurement of the interest rate risk of a complex bond where future cash flows are uncertain
Key Rate Duration
A measure of a bond’s sensitivity to a change in the benchmark yield curve at a specific maturity point or segment…helps identify shaping risk for a bond/portfolio – that is, its sensitivity to changes in the shape of the benchmark yield curve (yield curve becoming steeper or flatter or showing more or less curvature)
Empirical duration
A measure of interest rate sensitivity that is determined from market data…run a regression of bond price returns on changes in a benchmark interest rate
Money Duration
A measure of the price change in units of the currency in which the bond is denominated
Price value of a basis point (PVBP)
An estimate of the change in a bond’s price give an 1bp change in yield to maturity. PVBP scales money duration so that it can be interpreted as money gained or lost for each basis point change in the reference interest rate
Convexity
A second-order effect that describes a bond’s price behavior for larger yield movements. It captures the extent to which the yield/price relationship deviates from a linear relationship
If positive, expected return of the bond will be higher than the return of the identical-duration, lower-convexity bond if interest rates change
A bond with higher convexity might be expected to have a lower yield to maturity than a similar-duration bond with less convexity
What does nominal convexity calculations assume
Cash flows do not change when yields to maturity change
Effective convexity
A curve convexity statistic that measures the secondary effect of a change in a benchmark yield curve. A pricing model is used to determine the new prices when the benchmark curve is shifted upward (PV+) and downward (PV-) by the same amount (delta curve), holding other factors constant
Macauley duration properties for zero-coupon (option free) bonds:
MacDurs increase linearly with maturity (30-year zero has 3x duration of 10-year zero)
Convexity properties for zeros
Convexity is approximately proportional to duration squared (30-year zero has 9x convexity as 10-year zero)
Convexity of coupon-paying bonds vs. zeros
Coupon-paying bonds have more convexity than zeros of the same duration
In fact, the more widely dispersed a bond’s cast flows are around the duration point, the more convexity it will exhibit (zero will have lowest convexity of all bonds of a given duration)
Bond portfolio duration
Sensitivity of a portfolio of bonds to small changes in interest rates, calculated as the weighted average of time to receipt of the aggregate cash flows or weighted average of the individual bond durations of the portfolio
Modified duration of a bond portfolio
Indicates percentage change in the market value given a change in the yield to maturity
When is convexity more valuable as a measure
when YTM are more volatile
How can a portfolio’s convexity be altered
By shifting the maturity/duration distribution of bonds in the portfolio, by adding individual bonds with the desired convexity properties, or by using derivatives
Effective duration formula
(PV-) - (PV+) / (2 * delta curve * PV0)
Effective convexity formula
(PV-) + (PV+) - (2*PV0) / (PV0 * delta curve ^2)
Spread duration
Change in bond price for a given change in yield spread, also called OAS duration when OAS is the yield measure used
Duration times spread (DTS)
Weighting of spread duration by credit spread in order to incorporate the empirical observation that spread changes for lower-rated bonds tend to be consistent on a percentage, rather than absolute, basis
Portfolio dispersion
Captures the variance of the times to receipt of cash flows with respect to the duration, used in measuring interest rate immunization for liabilities
measures the extent to which the payments are spread out around the duration
higher cash flow dispersion leads to an increase in convexity
Relative Value
Concept that describes the selection of the most attractive individual securities to populate the portfolio with, using ranking and comparing
Private wealth management
Financial planning and investment management to help individual investors, particular HNW and UHNW, manage their wealth
HNW individual minimum threshold
1 million
UHNW individual minimum threshold
30 million
7 phases of the wealth life cycle
1) Education phase
2) Early career phase
3) Career development phase
4) Peak accumulation phase
5) Preretirement phase
6) Early retirement phase
7) Late retirement phase
Human capital
Net present value of an individual’s future expected labor income
5 Main components of an IPS
1) Client’s background and investment objectives
2) Investment program parameters
3) Portfolio asset allocation ranges
4) Portfolio management processes
5) Duties and responsibilities of the involved parties
Personal assets
Personal property that is not expected to appreciate in value