Investment Portfolio Management Assignment

The first word document is a detailed introduction to assignment. This assignment uses the school's ID and password, log in to EIKON to download the data, and then complete the first assignment！ 

The assessment is submitted as an individual assignment

You will be given funds to invest in the share market. You are required to construct two $1,000,000 equity investment portfolios:

1. A passive portfolio replicating the return of the index

2. An active portfolio to achieve your investment objective of outperforming the index

You will then prepare a report in which you can explain your investment strategy for constructing a passive and an active portfolio and then evaluate the investment performance of each in terms of absolute and relative return, risk and attribution effects to explain the differences in performance of each portfolio. You will be given an equally weighted index of ten companies selected from companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

This assessment replicates the tasks that would be undertaken by portfolio managers in a real-world investment company. For the passive portfolio, your task will be to replicate, as closely as possible, the risk and return characteristics of the benchmark index. For your active portfolio, your task will be to select stocks and sectors, which will result in your portfolio, achieving a higher return than the index.

Your task is not necessarily to produce a positive return. If the markets fall in value, then your passive portfolio should fall in value by a similar degree. Your active portfolio should aim to outperform the return on the index: if the index falls your portfolio should fall by a lesser amount; if the index rises then your portfolio should rise by a higher amount.

The final submission should fulfil the following minimum requirements

For Passive portfolio

· calculate the numbers of shares required for your passive portfolio to replicate the composition of the index

For Active portfolio

Assess all ten companies and sectors from the index

· analyse the outlook for each company’s industry

· analyse the macroeconomic environment at the global and domestic level

· identify the firms and sectors which you consider will outperform relative to the index and build your active portfolio to reflect your predictions

· analyse and comment on financial ratios of each company over the previous five years

· Return on Equity

· Net Profit Margin

· Earnings Growth

Evaluate your findings and select six companies for your active portfolio

· after assessing the ten companies, select six to be included in your active portfolio

· describe in the reasons for your selections (around 5 bullet points for each stock)

· also, describe the reasons why you have not chosen the other four firms (around 5 bullet points for each stock)

· assign portfolio weights for each of your companies and discuss why you have chosen the weights in comparison to the weight of each stock in the index

· calculate the number of shares required for each company to create a portfolio with the initial weights you have selected for your active portfolio

è why are some companies overweight in your portfolio, and why are others underweight?

è what do these active weights mean for your portfolio’s potential performance relative to the index?

Build your portfolios

· create these two portfolios in Refinitiv Eikon, ensuring that all dates and numbers of shares are correct

Portfolio Creation Dates

Passive

· Start Date: September 28, 2020,Monday

Active

· Start Date: October 12, 2020,Monday

Benchmark Portfolio

· BAFI 1042 2020

Portfolio Analysis period for both portfolios

· Start Date: October 12, 2020

· End Date: October 23, 2020

Observe your portfolios’ performances over two weeks

· as the share prices change over the evaluation period, you will be able to watch how the returns on the index, your active portfolio and your passive portfolio react

Report Summary should include the following minimum points

· discuss your investment goals and stock selection strategies

For each portfolio

· explain the reasoning for your stock selection and weighting relative to the index

· provide comments on total return/risk and active return/risk of your portfolios 

· discuss the sectors and securities’ active weights in your portfolio compared to the benchmark

· report your results for each portfolio 

· analyse the active return of your portfolios with reference to the allocation and selection effects

· comment on the Sharpe Ratio and Treynor Ratio for both portfolios. What does each of these ratios indicate? Which is a more appropriate measure for each portfolio?

· What was the overall performance of the active portfolio, your passive portfolio and the benchmark index?

· describe any major market events which contributed to the return performance of the benchmark or of your portfolios

· have you achieved (or not achieved) the goal for your passive/active portfolio 

Finally, which of the two portfolios will you recommend and why?

Data for your report from Eikon

Eikon calculates the portfolio statistics you will require for your report. The information you will need can be found as listed below.

Information

Eikon Location

Total and Active Return

Balanced Summary –   Contribution

Contribution to Return

Equity Summary –   Performance/Contribution

Contribution to Portfolio Weight

Equity Summary – Allocation

Allocation and Selection Effects

Brinson Single   Currency

Contribution to Total Risk

Ex-ante   Multi-factor Risk – Portfolio Summary

Contribution to Active Risk

Ex-ante   Multi-factor Risk – Active Summary

Performance Ratios (Sharpe, Treynor)

Return Statistics

The index constituents, which each have a 10% weighting, are as follows:

Code

Company

Sector

BOQ

Bank of Queensland Ltd

Financials

BSL

Bluescope Steel Ltd

Materials

COH

Cochlear Ltd

Health Care

CWN

Crown Resorts Ltd

Consumer Discretionary

HVN

Harvey Norman

Consumer Discretionary

NCM

Newcrest Mining

Materials

RHC

Ramsay Health Care Ltd

Health Care

TCL

Transurban Group

Industrials

WOW

Woolworths Group Ltd

Consumer Staples

WPL

Woodside Petroleum Ltd

Energy

References and Citations

Use proper citations and references and include a list of references you use in your report. Failure to do so will result in a lower grade. RMIT provides a web site which explains the use of the Harvard reference system. 

Please consult it here: https://www.lib.rmit.edu.au/easy-cite/

Some useful resources for this assignment include

Reilly, Frank K., Keith C. Brown and Sanford Leeds, Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management (11th Edition), Thomson South-Western, 2019.

You should also conduct your own analysis using the companies’ web sites, annual reports, Refinitiv Eikon, IBISWorld and any other sources you consider to be relevant for your report. The more resources you use for your research, the better your analysis will be.

Assignment submission procedure

All assignments must be submitted online through the course Canvas Turnitin for a plagiarism check. They must be accompanied by an assignment cover sheet. 

An Important Note on Plagiarism

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the presentation of the work, ideas or creation of another person without appropriate referencing, as though it is one’s own. Plagiarism can occur in oral and written presentations and is never acceptable. The use of another person’s work or ideas must be acknowledged. Failure to do so may result in charges of academic misconduct, which carry a range of penalties, including cancellation of results and exclusion from the course.

Students are advised to read and understand the University’s policy on plagiarism.