Portfolio Theory and Performance Analysis

States that asset management is central to the development of financial industry throughout the world. This book covers conceptual developments of portfolio theory. It covers the importance of innovations with regard to the fundamental portfolio management questions. Asset management has become central to the development of the financial industry, both in the United States and Europe. The increasing number of cross-border merger and acquisition operations and the extremely high valuations that are put on those operations are evidence of the major financial establishments’ desire to invest in a sector that they consider to be essential to their strategy of globalising and "financialising" their activities. Asset management's transition from an "art and craft" to an industry has inevitably called integrated business models into question, favouring specialisation strategies based on cost optimisation and learning curve objectives. Faced with an abundance of tools and academic references, it is important to place all the practices, empirical studies and innovations in their context, given that they are always described as "major" by their promoters in the area of portfolio theory. Portfolio Theory and Performance Analysis allow the professionals, whether managers or investors, to take a step back and c learly separate true innovations from mere improvements to well-known, existing techniques; puts into context the importance of innovations with regard to the fundamental portfolio management questions, which are the evolution of the investment management process, risk analysis and performance measurement; takes the explicit or implicit assumptions contained in the promoted tools into account and, by so doing, evaluate the inherent interpretative or practical limits. This book connects each of the major categories of techniques and practices to the unifying and seminal conceptual developments of modern portfolio theory, whether these involve measuring the return on a portfolio, analysing portfolio risk or evaluating the quality of the portfolio management process. For many years asset management was considered to be a marginal activity, but today, it is central to the development of financial industry throughout the world. Asset management's transition from an "art and craft" to an industry has inevitably called integrated business models into question, favouring specialisation strategies based on cost optimisation and learning curve objectives. This book connects each of these major categories of techniques and practices to the unifying and seminal conceptual developments of modern portfolio theory. In these bear market times, performance evaluation of portfolio managers is of central focus. This book will be one of very few on the market and is by a respected member of the profession. Allows the professionals, whether managers or investors, to take a step back and clearly separate true innovations from mere improvements to well-known, existing techniques Puts into context the importance of innovations with regard to the fundamental portfolio management questions, which are the evolution of the investment management process, risk analysis and performance measurement Takes the explicit or implicit assumptions contained in the promoted tools into account and, by so doing, evaluate the inherent interpretative or practical limits