Intertemporal portfolio choiceIntertemporal portfolio choice is the process of allocating one's investable wealth to various assets, especially financial assets, repeatedly over time, in such a way as to optimize some criterion. The set of asset proportions at any time defines a portfolio. Since the returns on almost all assets are not fully predictable, the criterion has to take financial risk into account. Typically the criterion is the expected value of some concave function of the value of the portfolio after a certain number of time periods—that is, the expected utility of final wealth.
Capital asset pricing modelIn finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, to make decisions about adding assets to a well-diversified portfolio. The model takes into account the asset's sensitivity to non-diversifiable risk (also known as systematic risk or market risk), often represented by the quantity beta (β) in the financial industry, as well as the expected return of the market and the expected return of a theoretical risk-free asset.
Financial modelingFinancial modeling is the task of building an abstract representation (a model) of a real world financial situation. This is a mathematical model designed to represent (a simplified version of) the performance of a financial asset or portfolio of a business, project, or any other investment. Typically, then, financial modeling is understood to mean an exercise in either asset pricing or corporate finance, of a quantitative nature. It is about translating a set of hypotheses about the behavior of markets or agents into numerical predictions.
Investment strategyIn finance, an investment strategy is a set of rules, behaviors or procedures, designed to guide an investor's selection of an investment portfolio. Individuals have different profit objectives, and their individual skills make different tactics and strategies appropriate. Some choices involve a tradeoff between risk and return. Most investors fall somewhere in between, accepting some risk for the expectation of higher returns. Investors frequently pick investments to hedge themselves against inflation.
Mutual fund separation theoremIn portfolio theory, a mutual fund separation theorem, mutual fund theorem, or separation theorem is a theorem stating that, under certain conditions, any investor's optimal portfolio can be constructed by holding each of certain mutual funds in appropriate ratios, where the number of mutual funds is smaller than the number of individual assets in the portfolio. Here a mutual fund refers to any specified benchmark portfolio of the available assets. There are two advantages of having a mutual fund theorem.
RiskMetricsThe RiskMetrics variance model (also known as exponential smoother) was first established in 1989, when Sir Dennis Weatherstone, the new chairman of J.P. Morgan, asked for a daily report measuring and explaining the risks of his firm. Nearly four years later in 1992, J.P. Morgan launched the RiskMetrics methodology to the marketplace, making the substantive research and analysis that satisfied Sir Dennis Weatherstone's request freely available to all market participants.
Systematic riskIn finance and economics, systematic risk (in economics often called aggregate risk or undiversifiable risk) is vulnerability to events which affect aggregate outcomes such as broad market returns, total economy-wide resource holdings, or aggregate income. In many contexts, events like earthquakes, epidemics and major weather catastrophes pose aggregate risks that affect not only the distribution but also the total amount of resources. That is why it is also known as contingent risk, unplanned risk or risk events.
Model riskIn finance, model risk is the risk of loss resulting from using insufficiently accurate models to make decisions, originally and frequently in the context of valuing financial securities. However, model risk is more and more prevalent in activities other than financial securities valuation, such as assigning consumer credit scores, real-time probability prediction of fraudulent credit card transactions, and computing the probability of air flight passenger being a terrorist.
Expected shortfallExpected shortfall (ES) is a risk measure—a concept used in the field of financial risk measurement to evaluate the market risk or credit risk of a portfolio. The "expected shortfall at q% level" is the expected return on the portfolio in the worst of cases. ES is an alternative to value at risk that is more sensitive to the shape of the tail of the loss distribution. Expected shortfall is also called conditional value at risk (CVaR), average value at risk (AVaR), expected tail loss (ETL), and superquantile.
Investment managementInvestment management (sometimes referred to more generally as asset management) is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts/mandates or via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or REITs.
