This book presents a critical analysis of four critical areas of investment management. Coverage includes an overview of portfolio management and its historical evolution; review and analysis of a range of academic research into the performance of portfolio managers; issues associated with both institutional and individual portfolio mismanagement; and a treatment of the important topics of suitability and churning. The contents are gathered from top academic, investment and law journals.

Millions of us are committing a slow, imperceptible form of financial suicide. Chances are your IRA or 401(k) carries far more risk than you realize, lacks real diversification that could reduce downside risk, and is falling behind the underreported rate of inflation that eats away at your retirement fund every year. In the next market crash, you could be left vulnerable and unprotected. Wall Street financial advisers are supposed to build and preserve your wealth, yet they are untrained in portfolio construction and how to contain risk and bulletproof your investments. They charge high fees and sometimes put their own interests ahead of yours. Now Ed Butowsky, a Wall Street insider who spent two decades as one of the top producers at the fabled firm of Morgan Stanley & Co., breaks from the pack to reveal the flaws, fibs and failings of financial advisers. To fix this mess, he has created the new CHIP Score to empower you to evaluate the potential for Risk & Reward in your portfolio and grade your adviser—before the next meltdown. Nobody else on Wall Street ever dared to create anything like it. Wealth Mismanagement will empower investors to protect themselves. Read it & reap.

This book presents a critical analysis of four critical areas of investment management. Coverage includes an overview of portfolio management and its historical evolution; review and analysis of a range of academic research into the performance of portfolio managers; issues associated with both institutional and individual portfolio mismanagement; and a treatment of the important topics of suitability and churning. The contents are gathered from top academic, investment and law journals.

In spite of theoretical benefits, Markowitz mean-variance (MV) optimized portfolios often fail to meet practical investment goals of marketability, usability, and performance, prompting many investors to seek simpler alternatives. Financial experts Richard and Robert Michaud demonstrate that the limitations of MV optimization are not the result of conceptual flaws in Markowitz theory but unrealistic representation of investment information. What is missing is a realistic treatment of estimation error in the optimization and rebalancing process. The text provides a non-technical review of classical Markowitz optimization and traditional objections. The authors demonstrate that in practice the single most important limitation of MV optimization is oversensitivity to estimation error. Portfolio optimization requires a modern statistical perspective. Efficient Asset Management, Second Edition uses Monte Carlo resampling to address information uncertainty and define Resampled Efficiency (RE) technology. RE optimized portfolios represent a new definition of portfolio optimality that is more investment intuitive, robust, and provably investment effective. RE rebalancing provides the first rigorous portfolio trading, monitoring, and asset importance rules, avoiding widespread ad hoc methods in current practice. The Second Edition resolves several open issues and misunderstandings that have emerged since the original edition. The new edition includes new proofs of effectiveness, substantial revisions of statistical estimation, extensive discussion of long-short optimization, and new tools for dealing with estimation error in applications and enhancing computational efficiency. RE optimization is shown to be a Bayesian-based generalization and enhancement of Markowitz's solution. RE technology corrects many current practices that may adversely impact the investment value of trillions of dollars under current asset management. RE optimization technology may also be useful in other financial optimizations and more generally in multivariate estimation contexts of information uncertainty with Bayesian linear constraints. Michaud and Michaud's new book includes numerous additional proposals to enhance investment value including Stein and Bayesian methods for improved input estimation, the use of portfolio priors, and an economic perspective for asset-liability optimization. Applications include investment policy, asset allocation, and equity portfolio optimization. A simple global asset allocation problem illustrates portfolio optimization techniques. A final chapter includes practical advice for avoiding simple portfolio design errors. With its important implications for investment practice, Efficient Asset Management 's highly intuitive yet rigorous approach to defining optimal portfolios will appeal to investment management executives, consultants, brokers, and anyone seeking to stay abreast of current investment technology. Through practical examples and illustrations, Michaud and Michaud update the practice of optimization for modern investment management.

This title suggests proactive processes for ensuring proper financial reporting of project investments in compliance with the new Sarbanes-Oxley Federal Law and techniques for preventing, detecting, and managing the risks of fraud.

In recent years the field of finance has exploded with innovation. New products, services and techniques abound. The risks of inflation, the volatility of interest rates, the deregulation of financial intermediaries and the unbundling of financial services have combined to present investment managers with challenges and opportunities far greater than in the past. For trustees and managers of pension, trust, endowment, and similar funds, the task of meeting the challenges and exploiting the opportunities is much more difficult. These fiduciaries must measure their investment decisions against constrained interpretations of a legal standard--the prudent man rule--that have caused it to lag far behind changes in investment theory and the marketplace. Drawing on financial history, a major opinion survey of institutional investors, and comprehensive reviews of the law and of the lessons of modern portfolio theory for prudence, this book presents a powerful case that the prudent man rule as elaborated in legal treatises and much of the case law would virtually compel a fiduciary to act imprudently in terms of financial theory and marketplace reality. In proposing a modern paradigm of investment prudence, the book uses illustrations drawn from such traditionally suspect categories of investment fiduciaries as securities lending, real estate, venture capital, options and futures and repurchaser agreements. An unusual examination of the interaction of the worlds of law and finance, this work will be of interest to fiduciaries who are subject to some from of prudent man rule and all others, including judges, lawyers and investment managers, who are called upon to interpret and apply that legal standard.

"Exploring the Investments Jungle: Finding Your Way to Financial Success" is the perfect book for anyone who wants to make intelligent investment decisions, but isn't sure where to begin. You'll learn: Which investments are the most suitable for you Where to find the investments that meet your needs How to avoid common pitfalls With the help of Seth C. Anderson's easy-to-follow guidelines, you can effectively navigate the investments jungle instead of relying on professionals-professionals who may be more interested in their own profits than your well-being. You can take control of your financial future . . . and there's no better time than now.

How institutions and individuals can address complex social, financial, and environmental problems on a systemic level—and invest in a more secure future. Investment today has evolved from the basic, conventional approach of the past. Investors have come to recognize the importance of sustainable investment and are more frequently considering environmental and social factors in their decisions. Yet the complexity of the times forces us to recognize and transition to a third stage of investment practice: system-level investing. In this paradigm-shifting book, William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg show how system-level investors support and enhance the health and stability of the social, financial, and environmental systems on which they depend for long-term returns. They preserve and strengthen these fundamental systems while still generating competitive or otherwise acceptable performance. This book is for those investors who believe in that transition. They may be institutions, large or small, concerned about the long-term stability of the environment and society. They may be individual investors who want their children and grandchildren to inherit a just and sustainable world. Whoever they may be, Burckart and Lydenberg show them the what, why, and how of system-level investment in this book: what it means to manage system-level risks and rewards, why it is imperative to do so now, and how to integrate this new way of thinking into their current practice. “Burckart and Lydenberg are the Wayne Gretzkys of investing: Showing us not where investing is, but where it’s going.” —Jon Lukomnik, Managing Partner, Sinclair Capital; Senior Fellow, High Meadows Institute

This monograph provides a comprehensive source of analysis and research on alternative investments in the wealth management process, with a special focus on Poland and Eastern Europe. It presents the characteristics that distinguish alternative investments from traditional investments and illustrates the benefits and risks involved in the former. The experience gained in developed countries is extremely valuable for the analysis of both the Polish and Eastern European financial markets. In the theoretical part of the book, key aspects of alternative investments are collected, systematized and developed; subsequently, in the empirical part the results of selected studies on the alternative investment sector around the world are examined. Lastly, the book’s findings are applied to the context of alternative financial investments in Poland, investigating the preferences for alternative investments in the country, which is the largest market in Central and Eastern Europe. Not only of theoretical interest, these insights have a high application value, making the book an essential resource for scholars, practitioners and policymakers alike.