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UIC Investment Management

 

 

All relevant information on UIC Investment Management Course will be posted on this website.

Click to go directly to: (1) Updates, (2) Course Outline and Lecture Notes, (3) Lecture Review, (4) Course Details, or (4) Assessment Information.

Course outline can be downloaded here.

 

 

 

UPDATES: Back to top || Updates || Course Outline and Lecture Notes || Lecture Review || Course Details || Assessment Information

Please check here for updates during the semester.

January 7, 2009. If you are doing the project, please email your project to myself and Lacey before mid-night January 8, 2009. For those who have do the presentation several weeks ago, please make sure that you email to me your presentation powerpoint file. Please also remember to do the online evaluation.

January 7, 2009. I have finished grading the short answer question section of the final examination this afternoon. I have found that the morning class did pretty well as most got the Porter's Five Forces model and the CAPM assumption questions correct, and many has answered last question correctly as well. Unfortunately, it is not the same case with the afternoon class. Many (more than I expected) students did not even tried to write something down for partial credits but left the three short answer questions completely unattempted and blanked. The CAPM assumption question was given before as a quiz question so I was expecting that most of you would have at least try to answer that question.

January 5, 2009. For your review, look through the topics that we have discussed in class, then read the parts in the textbook that correspond to these topics. There are other topics in the textbook which we have not discussed in class, and those will not be covered.

January 5, 2009. For the final examination, financial statement analysis is included. Formula sheet will NOT be provided but you can go over our review notes for the table from the textbook on the financial statement analysis formula.

December 26, 2008. Answer key to Assignment 3 can be downloaded here. If you have do the presentation for the project, please make sure that you email to me your presentation.

December 18, 2008. Assignment 3 is due on Thursday, December 25, 2008. You can send hard copy to Lacey and / or send soft copy to myself and Lacey.

December 18, 2008. The following items are available for download to help you study for your final examination. Assignment 2 answer can be downloaded here. Assignment 3 can be downloaded here. Quiz 4 answer can be downloaded here. Quiz 5 answer can be downloaded here.

December 18, 2008. The presentations were done very well. Those who have presented please make sure that you send a copy of your powerpoint presentation to me.

December 18, 2008. The final examination topics can be downloaded here.

December 14, 2008. I have also posted the answer key for all the suggested exercise from the textbook so that you can try the questions and check your answers before the final examination.

December 14, 2008. Assignment 3 will be distributed on Thursday, December 25, 2008. Please submit to Lacey on UIC campus. Assignment answer key with detailed answers will be posted on December 26, 2008. If you have questions on Assignment 3 during the holidays when you are preparing for the final examination, you can contact myself via email or Lacey on campus.

December 12, 2008. Assignment 2 due at the beginning of class on Thursday, December 18, 2008.

December 12, 2008. For the next session, we will have presentations on the project by those who have signed up. Limits of 5 minutes, in English, and in front of the class during the make-up session.

December 12, 2008. Lecture notes for Thursday, December 18, 2008 is available and can be downloaded in the Course Outline and Lecture Notes section under Lecture 11. We will have the regular class during the morning and afternoon, then a make-up session for the New Year holiday will be held from 6pm to 9pm in B302.

December 8, 2008. Lecture notes for Thursday, December 11, 2008 is available and can be downloaded in the Course Outline and Lecture Notes section under Lecture 10. We will have the regular class during the morning and afternoon, then a make-up session for the Christmas holiday will be held from 6pm to 9pm in B302.

December 5, 2008. Suggested exercises, together with suggested solutions, chosen from textbook have been added for chapters 7 to 13 and 17 to 19. Please see Course Outline and Lecture Notes section.

December 5, 2008. Project information. For those that would like to do the OPTIONAL project, the due date is still on January 8, 2009, but you will need to email your project report to myself and Lacey. But you MUST send to me your topic first before starting so I can make sure that you are on the right track. I can also provide more directions on how to start once I know your topic. More details can be found on the project information which can be downloaded in the Assessment section. You can send me email for more details if needed. For those who would like to do the presentation to the class, please know that it would needs to be performed on December 11 or December 18 during the night time make up class.

December 5, 2008. Answer key for Quiz 3 and Quiz 4 is available in the Assessment and Course Outline and Lecture Notes section under Lecture 9.

December 3, 2008. Lecture notes for Thursday, December 4, 2008 is available and can be downloaded in the Course Outline and Lecture Notes section under Lecture 9. We will have the regular class during the morning and afternoon, then a make-up session for the Christmas holiday will be held from 6pm to 9pm in B302.

November 25, 2008. Lecture notes for Thursday, November 27, 2008 is available and can be downloaded in the Course Outline and Lecture Notes section under Lecture 8.

November 21, 2008. I have went through some questions in the mid-term test. The marked version of the mid-term test answer key can be downloaded here. As discussed in class, please mark your calendar for the following Thursday nights for make up class due to our Christmas and New Year holiday: Dec 4, Dec 11, Dec 18. We will hold the make up class from 6pm to 9pm in UIC.

November 16, 2008. Lecture notes for Thursday, November 20 is available and can be downloaded in the Course Outline and Lecture Notes section.

November 15, 2008. For the lecture on Thursday, November 20, please bring your lecture notes from the previous week. We will finish the remaining topics in that set of lecture notes.

November 14, 2008. Make up classes needs to be arranged. The last two classes of this course falls on holidays (Christmas Dec 25 and New Year Jan 1), so we need to arrange for two make up classes. I want to make sure that you have plenty of time to review for the final examination, so I would like to schedule these make up classes as early as possible. So be prepared for them and I will let you know once time and location is confirmed.

November 14, 2008. Just from being there in the mid-term test, it appears that almost all of you were able to do most of the questions. I have purposefully included more difficult questions so that there can be better differentiation for my grading purpose. The answer key for the mid-term test can be downloaded here. We will discuss several of the more interesting questions during the tutorial next week, but if you have questions that you want to go through in class, please let me or Lacey know.

November 8, 2008. For the mid-term, (a) no formula or formula sheet will be provided, and (b) please review the textbook materials relating to the topics discussed in class. For each topic covered, I have taken out the most relevant and important material to discuss in class, but there are still supporting or more detailed explanation that you can study within the textbook for these topics.

November 6, 2008. The mid-term test will be held next Thursday, November 13, 2008. It will cover ALL material discussed in class up to and including Lecture 4 Slide 34. You will have multiple choice questions, true / false questions, several short answer questions, and several calculation questions. If you have any questions, please send me an email or check with Lacey at her office. We will a short 30 minutes review when class starts, then the mid-term test will be given. The mid-term test will be no more than 2 hours.

To help you prepare. The answer key for quiz two can be downloaded here. The answer key to homework assignment one can be downloaded here. The answer key to the suggested homework questions can be downloaded here. If you use an earlier version of the textbook, please check with Lacey for the correct details of the questions as they are different between versions.

November 3, 2008. Lecture slides for November 6 available for download at the Course Outline section.

October 31, 2008. If you cannot access the ftp to download files, please get the files from Lacey or send us an email so that we can send the files to you. Homework assignment #1 distributed, due before class on November 6, 2008. On October 30, we went through Example 2 to calculate the portfolio return and risk when assets have different correlations. The answer to Example 2 can be downloaded here, and the excel worksheet for Example 2 can to downloaded here. There is one error in one of the correlation coefficient formula in your notes (am class only), I will go through that next week.

October 27, 2008. There are several new items that you can download. The quiz that you took last week (with answer key) can be downloaded here. There are new lecture slides for Lecture 4 on October 30, 2008 with more on correlation coefficient in a portfolio context and two examples that we will go through in class, it can be downloaded here (the version for translation can be downloaded here). Homework assignment #1 can be downloaded here. Homework assignment #1 is due before class on November 3, 2008.

October 23, 2008. For Lectures 4 and 5, please bring the lecture slides from all the previous lectures. I have added suggested exercises that you can do from the textbook. But as discussed before, please make sure that it is the right question as my question number refers to the latest edition of the book; you can borrow the latest edition of the textbook from Lacey to check. The suggested exercises are Chapter 2 Q11, Chapter 3 Q4, Chapter 5 CFA Problems 1 to 5, Chapter 6 Q4. We will go through these questions in class before the mid-term test.

October 22, 2008. Lecture 3 slides are available for downloading. A student had email and told me that the ftp cannot be accessed for downloading; if you encountered the same problem in downloading or accessing, please check with me or Lacey. Please also make sure that you have the textbook and start to read up on the first few lecture because the mid-term test will be in THREE weeks.

October 17, 2008. Lecture 2 slides are available for downloading. You can look for sources of Chinese textbook at various online auction sites.

October 12, 2008. Course outline, project outline, and lecture 1 slides are available for downloading.

July 25, 2008. Detailed course outline and lecture notes will be available when the term begins.

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ASSESSMENT Back to top || Updates || Course Outline and Lecture Notes || Lecture Review || Course Details || Assessment Information

ALL in-class quizzes, assignments, mid-term test, and final examination are INDIVIDUAL effort, meaning that you should work on your own material and any unscholarly actions prohibited by the university must be avoided.

I will post ALL relevant course materials, updated information, correspondences, and relevant student questions in the UPDATES section on this page. Students are responsble to check the UPDATES section frequently on their own to ensure that they are up-to-date. I will provide the dates and topics of the updates to easier search.

The final grade is based on five parts:

In class Quiz + class participation (attendence, participation, and discussion in lectures and tutorials)
15%
Assignments
15%
Mid-term test
20%
Final examination
50%
Total 100%
   
Individual project (optional)
5%

Quiz. There will be numerous very short in-class quizzes based on recently taught materials. Together with attendance and class participation, they will make up for 15% of the total result for this course.

DOWNLOAD: quiz one answer key || quiz two answer key || quiz three answer key || quiz four answer key || quiz five answer key

Assignments. There will be three short assignments composed of multiple choice, true-and-false, short answers, and calculation questions. The focus of the assignments is to direct students to concepts, information, and calculations that they would be expected to perform in both the mid-term test and final examination. There is generally a week's time to finish the assignment. The assignments should be based onindividual efforts and each student should work on their own assignment. The assignment is due before class starts on the due date. The three assignments will make up for 15% of the total result for this course.

DOWNLOAD: assignment one || assignment one answer key || assignment two || assignment two answer key || assignment three || assignment three answer key

Mid-term test. The mid-term test will be composed of multiple choice, true-and-false, short answers, and calculation questions on financial concepts and materials taught up to the time of the mid-term test in this course. The mid-term test will make up for 20% of the total result for this course.

DOWNLOAD: mid-term answer key

Final examination. The final examination will be composed of multiple choice, true-and-false, short answers, and calculation questions on financial concepts and materials taught in the course with an emphasis on materials from the second half of the course. The final examination will make up for 50% of the total result for this course.

Individual project (optional). Each student will perform basic investment research on a company or an industry. Basic industry analysis, competitive strategy evaluation, Porter's five forces model, SWOT analysis, and other analytical models should be performed to result in a short report for submission. This individual project is OPTIONAL. Students that submit an individual project report can achieve a maximum of 5% bonus score to their total result for this course. More details will be provided when class starts.

DOWNLOAD: project outline || project outline for translation

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LECTURE REVIEW Back to top || Updates || Course Outline and Lecture Notes || Lecture Review || Course Details || Assessment Information

A summary of our discussion during the lecture is provided here for your reivew.

October 9, 2008
For this lecture, we discussed a number of logistic and introductory topics on financial management. Major topics included:
  • the logistics of the course like how the final grades are determined,
  • some information on the optional research project,
  • the difference between personal financial planning, financial management (corporate finance), and investment management,
  • what assets and investments are and their characteristics,
  • the roles of the financial markets,
  • who the participants are in the financial markets, what they do, what kind of jobs they offer, and the nature of these jobs, and lastly
  • some recent trends in the financial markets.

 

   
October 16, 2008

For this lecture, major topics discussed included:

  • the various types of financial assets which include fixed income, equities, indices, derivatives, and cash,
  • the tax exempt status of municipal bonds,
  • the two ways to construct stock market indices,
  • the process of IPO,
  • how securities are traded in the secondary markets, and
  • other related toics like buying on margin, short trading, and insider trading.

 

   
October 23, 2008

In this lecture, we discussed:

  • risk and return of a one asset,
  • return is made up of capital gains and recurring income,
  • risk is measured by variance or standard deviation,
  • we started to talk about the effects of holding more than one investment on risk and return,
  • return is the weighted average of the asset returns,
  • risk is measured by standard deviation AND the correlation between the assets, and
  • for the next lecture, we will go through an actual calculation of how correlation affects portfolio risk.

 

   
October 30, 2008

In this lecture, we continued with our discussion of risk and return:

  • review of risk and return for one asset,
  • expected return for a portfolio of two assets,
  • portfolio risk of a portfolio of two assets - with positive correlation coefficient,
  • portfolio risk of a portfolio of two assets - with negative correlation coefficient,
  • assuming everything constant, effect on portfolio risk and return when weights of assets varies,
  • effect on portfolio risk and return when both weights and correlation coefficient varies,
  • adding more assets to derive efficient frontier, and
  • characteristics and special properties of the efficient frontier.

 

   
November 6, 2008 In this lecture, we extended our existing two assets risk and return model with:
  • risk free asset as another choice for investment,
  • Capital Allocation Line (CAL) which helps determine how much risk free and how much the market portfolio to buy,
  • individual investors' utility function and indifference curve,
  • combinating indifference curve with CAL to find best portfolio allocation for investors,
  • use of leverage in portfolio investment, and
  • Markowitz portfolio selection model, separation property, and passive investment strategy.

 

   
November 13, 2008 Mid-term test given. Answer key with explanation can be downloaded here. We will discuss questions from the mid-term in next week's tutorial sessions.
   
November 20, 2008 Mid-term questions discussed, and my marked mid-term test answer key can be downloaded here. Then we discussed:
  • diversification in terms of systematic versus non-systematic risk, and
  • CAPM, arbitrage, and multifactor models.

 

   
November 27, 2008 In this lecture, we went through a short review of our previous topics to answer the mid-term short answers questions on the efficient frontier, optimal portfolio, and the indifference curve. Then we discussed:
  • how CAPM is derived and what beta means,
  • concepts of diversification and systematic versus non-systematic risks,
  • other models other than CAPM,
  • how to go from theory to real life, and
  • market efficiency.

 

   
December 4, 2008

In the regular and evening make up lectures, we continued with our discussion of market efficiency:

  • market efficiency,
  • failures and research on market efficiency,
  • research findings on CAPM,
  • behavioral finance, and
  • how the above factors cause deviations in real life from theories we learned in class.

 

   
December 11, 2008 In the regular session, we went through:
  • the basics of technical analysis,
  • the basics of fundamental analysis,
  • industry / product life cycle,
  • Porter's Five Forces model, and
  • sector rotation.

Then in the evening make up session, we discussed:

  • using balance sheet information for equity valuation,
  • using the dividend discount model for equity valuation,
  • using price to earnings and other ratios for equity valuation,
  • using free cash flow model for equity valuation, and
  • using financial statement analysis to determine quality of company for investment.

 

   
December 18, 2008 In the regular session, we went through:
  • the two ways to calculate returns, time-weighted and dollor-weighted,
  • adjust for risk level of returns using Sharpe, Treynor, Jensen, and Information Ratio, and
  • the effect of foreign exchange on investment returns.

Then in the evening make up session, we discussed:

  • topics that is covered for the final exmination,
  • presentation on project, and
  • quizzes 4and 5 answer kpt.

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COURSE OUTLINE AND LECTURE NOTES Back to top || Updates || Course Outline and Lecture Notes || Lecture Review || Course Details || Assessment Information

Chapter based on the 8th edition of the textbook, if you use an earlier version of the book, please check chapter content to read correct material.

This course outline is tentative and subject to change based on our progress. Please check the UPDATES section and table below for latest information.

Course outline can be downloaded here.

"Skim" = should review the chapter briefly but focus on parts discussed in the lecture for test and examination purposes.

Reading = should read the chapter and understand the concepts as questions based on these material might appear in test and examination.

PART I. INTRODUCTION. Introduction to Investment Management, its role in the world of finance, and how it fits with other topics that you have learned.

Lecture 1
Reading: Chapter 1, 2, 3 (all skim) (DOWNLOAD: course outline || lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)
   
October 9, 2008 Introduction to investment management, logistics and other details    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 2 Q11, chapter 3 Q4 (DOWNLOAD: suggested exercise key)    
       
PART II. FINANCE THEORIES ON RISK AND RETURN - MODERN PORTFOLIO THEORY AND ASSET PRICING. Financial assets are measured by the two parameters of risk and return, and the modern portfolio theory provides a framework to standardize these two measures so that assets can be priced correctly. This is an important theoretical foundation upon which most subsequent finance theories are based.
Lecture 2 Reading: Chapter 5 and 6 (DOWNLOAD: lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
October 16, 2008 Introduction to Investment Management, Risk and return    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 5 CFA Problems 1 to 5, Chapter 6 Q4 (DOWNLOAD: suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 3 Reading: Chapter 7 (DOWNLOAD: quiz 1 key || lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
October 23, 2008 Optimal risky portfolios    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 7 Q1, 4 to 19, CFA Problems 4 to 11 (DOWNLOAD: ch 7 suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 4 Reading: Chapter 9 (DOWNLOAD: lecture slides || lecture slides for translation || example 2 Answer || example 2 Excel)    
October 30, 2008 Capital asset pricing model    
  Assignment One distribution (DOWNLOAD: assignment one)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 9 Q5, 13 to 16 and 19 (DOWNLOAD: ch 9 suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 5 Reading: Chapter 8 and 10 (DOWNLOAD: quiz 2 key || suggested exercise key || lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
November 6 , 2008 Index models, arbitrage pricing theory, multifactor models of risk and return    
  ASSIGNMENT ONE DUE before class (DOWNLOAD: assignment one answer key)    
  Mid-term test review    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 8 Q6, 7 and 17 (DOWNLOAD: ch 8 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 10 Q5, 10, CFA Problem 2 (DOWNLOAD: ch 10 suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 6 Mid-term test review    
November 13, 2008 MID-TERM TEST (DOWNLOAD: mid-term answer key)     
       
PART III. SECURITIES ANALYSIS. Based on the theoretical framework of modern portfolio theory, we will study ways in which various assets are evaluated.
Lecture 7 Reading: Chapter 11 (DOWNLOAD: lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
November 20, 2008 Mid-term test discussion (DOWNLOAD: MARKED mid-term answer key)     
  Market efficiency    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 11, Q6, 7, 9, 13, 17, 19, CFA Problems 1 to 6 (DOWNLOAD: ch 11 suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 8 Reading: Chapter 12 and 13 (DOWNLOAD: lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
November 27, 2008 Behavioral finance and empirical evidence    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 12 Q2 to 4 (DOWNLOAD: ch 12 suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 9 Reading: Chapter 17 and 18 (DOWNLOAD: quiz 3 key || quiz 4 key || lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
December 4, 2008 Economical factors and equity valuation models     
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 17 Q8 to 11, 14, CFA Problems 2 to 5 (DOWNLOAD: ch 17 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 18 Q6, 8 to 10, 14 to 17 (DOWNLOAD: ch 18 suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 10 Reading: Chapter 19  (DOWNLOAD: assignment two || lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
December 11, 2008 Financial statement analysis     
  Assignment Two distribution (DOWNLOAD: assignment two)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 19 Q4 to 6, CFA Problems 3, 7 to 9, 13 to 15, 17 (DOWNLOAD: ch 19 suggested exercise key)    
       
PART IV. PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT - MANAGEMENT, DIVERSIFICATION, PERFORMANCE EVALUATION . Asset returns and their level of risk interact and change when they are combined into a portfolio. In this section, we will learn about this interaction, its use and measurement, and its application in real life situation.
Lecture 11 Reading: Chapter 4, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23 (all skim) (DOWNLOAD: quiz 5 key || lecture slides || lecture slides for translation)    
December 18, 2008 Mutual funds and other investment companies, options, futures and swaps    
  ASSIGNMENT TWO DUE before class (DOWNLOAD: assignment two answer key)    
  Assignment Three distribution (DOWNLOAD: assignment three)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 4 Q7 (DOWNLOAD: ch 4 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 14 Q5, 7 to 10, 14, CFA Problem 2 (DOWNLOAD: ch 14 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 15 Q8, CFA Problems 2 to 3 (DOWNLOAD: ch 15 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 20 Q6, 7, 12, 14 to 16, 22, 23 (DOWNLOAD: ch 20 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 21 Q2 to 4, 11 to 13, 28 (DOWNLOAD: ch 21 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 22 Q9 to 10, 12, CFA Problems 1 to 3 (DOWNLOAD: ch 22 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 23 Q7 to 8 (DOWNLOAD: ch 23 suggested exercise key)    
       
Lecture 12 Reading: Chapter 24 and 25    
December 18, 2008 Performance evaluation and international diversification    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 24 Q5, 6, 14, CFA Problems 1, 5 to 6, 10, 12 to 13, 16 (DOWNLOAD: ch 24 suggested exercise key)    
  Suggested exercises: Chapter 25 Q3, CFA Problems 2 to 3 (DOWNLOAD: ch 25suggested exercise key)    
   
 
Lecture 13 Reading: Chapter 26 and 27
December 18, 2008 Portfolio management and active portfolio management    
       
December 25, 2008 ASSIGNMENT THREE DUE (DOWNLOAD: assignment three answer key)
 
       
January 7, 2009 FINAL EXAMINATION    
       
January 8, 2009 INDIVIDUAL PROJECT (OPTIONAL) DUE (DOWNLOAD: project outline || project outline for translation)    
       
February 4-8, 2009 SUPPLEMENTARY EXAMINATION    

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