Portfolios Flashcards
Provide the formula for the VWAP transaction cost estimate.
What is wash trading?
Explain how risk measures may be used in capital allocation decisions.
Putting limits on capital assigned to each of the firm’s activities prevents an unproven strategy from potentially siphoning away all risk capital from other potentially lucrative strategies.
Calculate and interpret the information ratio (ex postand ex ante) and contrast it to the Sharpe ratio.
List possible measures to safeguard against systemic risk.
Describe how value added by active management is measured
What are explicit costs?
Demonstrate how options measures may be used in measuring and managing market risk and volatility risk.
Explain cash drag.
State and interpret the fundamental law of active portfolio management including its component terms.
Describe advantages and limitations of sensitivity risk measures and scenario risk measures.
Explain the equity risk premium.
Explain impact of electronic trading on transaction costs.
Explain the relationship between the long-term growth rate of the economy, the volatility of the growth rate, and the average level of real short-term interest rates.
Describe how ETFs are traded in the U.S. market.
Define a strategy used by electronic quote matchers.
Electronic quote matchers try to exploit the option values of standing orders (limit orders waiting to be filled). Quote matchers buy when they believe they can rely on standing buy orders to get out of their positions, and they sell when they can do the same with standing sell orders.
If prices then move in the quote matchers’ favor, they profit as long as they stay in the security or contract.
Explain risk budgeting as a risk management method.
List potential causes of systemic risks associated with fast trading.
Describe advantages and limitations of VaR.
Interpret tracking risk and the information ratio.
Describe risk measures (other than sensitivity and scenario analysis) used by banks.
Explain how market values are affected by default-free interest rates across maturities, the timing and/or magnitude of expected cash flows, and risk premiums.
Describe the comparative benefits of computers versus humans.
Define market manipulation.
List five advantages of electronic trading systems (ETSs).
How is latency associated with physical limitations of computers minimized?
Explain the use of value at risk (VaR) in measuring portfolio risk.
Explain how the phase of the business cycle affects policy and short-term interest rates, the slope of the term structure of interest rates, and the relative performance of bonds of differing maturities.
When the output gap or inflation expectation changes, the neutral policy rate changes. Rate levels relative to neutral policy determine the level of the term structure curve. The yield difference at the short and long ends of the curve determines the slope.
Describe the historical simulation method for estimating VaR.
Explain how ETFs are related to the following terms: creation units, creation basket, redemption basket.
ETF transactions between authorized participants (APs) and ETF managers are done in large blocks called creation units.
Once an ETF is created, the ETF manager publishes a list of required in-kind securities for each ETF every business day. This list of securities is made publicly available and is referred to as the creation basket.
If an AP wants to redeem ETF shares, they exchange their ETF shares in exchange for the redemption basket, which is the underlying basket of securities in the ETF.
Describe the shortcomings of the effective spread.
Explain how the information ratio may be useful in investment manager selection and choosing the level of active portfolio risk.
Describe arbitrage pricing theory (APT) including its underlying assumptions and its relation to multifactor models.
Describe cyclical effects of valuation multiples.
Why do electronic traders need a comparative speed advantage?
Explain the following as they relate to ETFs: portfolio efficiency and liquidity; asset class exposure management; active and factor investing.
Explain how ETFs trade in primary and in secondary markets.
Describe the parametric method for estimating VaR.
Explain what the number of simulation runs depends on.
The number of simulation runs increases with the number of probabilistic inputs, the variety of distributions used in the analysis, and the range of potential outcomes for the input variable.
Describe a strategy used by electronic news traders.
Describe relative VaR.
Define systemic risk.
Explain the Monte Carlo simulation method for estimating VaR.
Explain the relationship between the consumption-hedging properties of equity and the equity risk premium.
Explain how the phase of the business cycle affects credit spreads and the performance of credit-sensitive fixed-income securities.
Explain how the characteristics of the markets for a company’s products affect the company’s credit quality.
When uncertainty about ability to repay increases (as during a contraction), credit risk premiums increase, and the value of credit bonds decreases. The sensitivity of a company to general business cycles affects the degree to which its credit spread is affected by business cycles.