Investment Analysis & Portfolio Management – Core Finance

Say hello to Financial Analysis done right. You’ll master sophisticated investment analysis and portfolio management techniques that are rigorously grounded in academic and practitioner literature.

Explore and master powerful relationships between stock prices, returns, and risk. Quantify and measure your investment risk, from scratch.

Discover what your financial advisor should be doing to manage your portfolio – to manage your investments.

Do all of this, and a whole lot more… manually, as well as on Excel® and Google Sheets, working with real world data.

There’s no prior knowledge required. We’ll start you from the very basics, and build you to a financial analysis PRO thanks to:

6 SECTIONS TO MASTERY (plus, all future updates included).

Introduction: Understanding Investment Security Relationships & Estimating Returns

• Understanding powerful relationships between risk, return, and price.

• Intuitively explore the baseline fundamental law of Financial Analysis – The Law of One Price.

• Calculating stock returns for dividend and non-dividend paying stocks, manually.

• Downloading and working with real world data, and estimating stock returns on Excel® / Google Sheets.

Estimating Expected Returns

• Estimating expected returns using the average (mean) method.

• Estimating expected returns using ‘state contingent weighted probabilities’.

• Estimating expected returns using Asset Pricing Models including the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM).

• You’ll learn each approach theoretically AND practically, ensuring you fully understand why the formulas work the way they do, and that you’re able to download relevant data and conduct the initial financial analysis by computing expected returns for any stock you want.

Understanding and Measuring Risk and Relationships

• Estimating the total risk of a stock.

• Estimating the market risk of a stock.

• As a by-product of learning to measure the market risk, you’ll also learn how to quantity the relationships between securities – something that will be a focal theme of portfolio management and investment / financial analysis.

• As with the expected returns, you’ll learn to measure risk manually as well as on Excel® / Google Sheets. Thanks to a solid understanding of why the equations work the way they do, you’ll see how Google Sheets can get things wrong, and what you can do to make sure you conduct financial analysis without incorrect / inaccurate estimates.

Measuring Portfolio Risk and Return

• Estimating the return of a 2 asset and multi-asset portfolio.

• Measuring the risk of a 2 asset and multi-asset portfolio.

• Discover the 3 factors that influence / impact portfolio risk – 1 of which is more important than the other two combined!

Exploring Diversification & Optimisation

• Risk reduction by diversification.

• Exploring Optimal Diversification – Number of Securities to Hold

• Optimising portfolio weights to achieve a target expected return.

• Minimising your portfolio risk (mathematically) using robust financial analysis techniques.

Decomposing Diversification

• Investigate and explore why, fundamentally, diversification works for financial analysis / investment analysis.

• Rethink the way you measure the relationships between securities for financial analysis by extending the current measure.

• Explore precisely how and why the most important factor of risk influences / impacts portfolio risk.

DESIGNED FOR DISTINCTION

We’ve used the same tried and tested, proven to work teaching techniques that’ve helped our clients ace their exams and become chartered certified accountants, get hired by the most renowned investment banks in the world, and indeed, manage their own portfolios. Here’s how we’ll help you master financial analysis and turn you into an Investment Analysis & Portfolio Management PRO:

A Solid Foundation

You’ll gain a solid foundation of the core fundamentals that drive the entire investment analysis and portfolio management process. These fundamentals are the essence of financial analysis done right.

Example Walkthroughs

Every major concept is taught with example question walkthroughs, so you can literally see how we analyse investments and conduct rigorous financial analysis, one step at a time.

Loads of Practice Questions

Apply what you learn immediately with 150+ practice questions, all with impeccably detailed solutions.

Cheat Sheets & Resources

Mathematical proofs, one page cheat sheets, workable Excel® & Google Sheet spreadsheets – all included.

Say goodbye to information overload.

Engage with carefully thought out, clutter-free, and engaging study materials that focus on the 20% finance fundamentals that drive 80% of the results.

Easily follow through complex financial analysis concepts with great visuals that don’t overdo it.

Explore byte-sized lectures that don’t cut corners – so you receive the right amount of information which will hold you in good stead wherever you go, whatever you move on to do.

Watch your confidence grow.

Apply what you learn immediately in example question walkthroughs and progressively challenging quizzes with impeccably detailed solutions.

Engage with over 150 questions ranging from simple true and false ones to more complex problems that take you outside your comfort zone.

Questions are relevant for Ivy League / Russell Group University students studying any core Finance / Financial Analysis course, as well as professionals studying for the ICAEW CFAB, ACA, ACCA, and CFA qualifications.

All questions designed in-house, by Russell Group Distinction Tutors.

Finally understand why  the math works.

Learn why we divide some variables by something, and multiply other variables by something else. Get past the painful approach of memorising countless equations. Not only will we rip apart each equation one variable at a time, we’ll also give you mathematical proofs that show the equation’s logic one step at a time. Save yourself time and effort by understanding why the equation works the way it does. Then go out and create your own equations, and redefine the way you conduct your own financial analysis.

Rigorously Analyse Investments & Manage Portfolios using Excel® & Google Sheets.

Enroll now and conduct your own financial analysis in a robust manner, from scratch.

Who this course is for:

• ACA, ACCA, CFA®, other Professional students
• Ivy League / Russell Group University students
• Finance Managers keen on applying conceptual techniques including portfolio design.
• Investors wanting to work with techniques that are rigorously grounded in academic and practitioner literature.
• Analysts, and aspiring Investment Bankers wanting to gain a solid foundation in investment analysis.
• Anyone who wants to learn investment analysis and portfolio management!