This segment focuses on institutional investment in non-traditional products, primarily hedge funds, but also private equity. The hedge fund investment universe has grown significantly over the past two decades; originally favoured by private banking clients and high-net-worth individuals, the ‘alternative’ and derivative arena has progressively attracted major assets from traditional institutional investors. Professionals entering the investment management field will need to be highly knowledgeable about capital markets and new job opportunities, and to know what they are doing.
Investing & Trading Fundamentals
- Types of low-yield and high-yield investments and trading ideas
- Arbitrage, highly leveraged, and market neutral trading strategies
- Shift from fundamental analysis to technical analysis for timing decisions
- Risk management, short and long volatility
- Trading systems, do they work?
- Hedge fund sales, dealing with complex client issues
Case Studies on Select Strategies
- Global Macro & Risk Arbitrage
- Fixed Income Arbitrage
- Managed Futures
- Equity Hedge & Statistical Trading
- Convertible Arbitrage
Every year around a thousand or more new hedge funds launch, and every year around a thousand or more fold. Many of our alumni work for hedge funds, and a few have launched their own funds. The module involves a discussion of famous hedge fund managers globally, and the assumed and actual reasons for their successes.
“I wanted to increase my knowledge of finance by learning from the most knowledgeable people possible, and I felt that Swiss Finance represented the best opportunity for me to further educate myself and accomplish my goals.”
Colter V.D., Tiger Global Hedge Fund
Capital Markets covers the full landscape of international financial markets, country by country, asset class by asset class. The course equips students to make complex and sophisticated decisions for consistent profits, to thrive in change, and to rely on their own research and judgment.
Economics, Geopolitics & Geography
- How do you judge if a country or economy is worthy of your money?
- Deciding if a currency is under or over-valued
- Where to put money once a currency is selected
- Understanding liquidity issues and transaction costs in cross-border situations
- Sovereign risk, credit ratings and their severe limitations
- Macro/secular trends: The secret 20-year rule
- Macro-economic fraud: governments ‘defaulting’ to corporations misleading investors
Global Market Dynamics
- Current state of the US, UK, EU, Swiss, Chinese, South American, and other major economies
- Why do investors and traders analyze markets? How do we measure performance?
- Currency fundamentals, infrastructure, government spending, tax policies, capital accumulation and depletion, consumer spending, demographics, economic growth, inflation and deflation, interest rates
- Human capital and immigration, protectionism, and overall regulatory environments
- Employment, wages, interest rates, prices, inflation, consumer spending, cost of capital
Strategy & Tactics
- Security selection
- Capital allocation with or without diversification
- True diversification or bucket open to contagion?
- Cutting losses and timing decisions
- Building up positions
- Stop losses, trailing stops, and other risk management methods
- Catalyst: It’s a raw deal if it doesn’t have one
- How do financial institutions, capital markets, investors, and other factors facilitate the flow of capital to places where they want it most?
