A two-day course on how investors can reach for higher returns by thinking outside the low-yield box
The purpose of this seminar is to provide you with a comprehensive overview of methods and tools for investing in the post-crisis environment of extremely low yields.
We start with a review of the economic developments that have lead to historically low yields and we discuss factors that could indicate a change of this environment. We also explain and discuss the risks of remaining invested "passively" in investment grade fixed income and we explain how yield may be sought enhanced through more active approaches.
We then take a closer look at a number of strategies that take a broader approach to fixed income investing and that may add yield potential with only incremental risk. We also explain how the risk/return relationship can be improved through active, "alpha-seeking" management, or "satellite" investing around the core.
Further, we explain how investors can move out the risk-return spectrum to look at asset classes that produce "income-like" returns. These include money market funds, dividend-paying common stocks, preferred stocks, high yield bonds, leveraged loans, convertible bonds, REITs, MLPs and certain types of private equity and hedge fund investments. We carefully explain the mechanics and risks of these instruments, and we illustrate with lots of practical examples.
Finally, we explain and demonstrate how to implement the above investment strategies following a carefully designed investment process. We explain how risk and return objectives and constraints should be formulated to reflect the "New Investing Normal", and we demonstrate how to construct optimal portfolios that maximize total return under the constraint of a risk budget. We also explain and demonstrate how to calculate and decompose investment return with the purpose of identifying return sources and to verify that the chosen strategies have truly added value, and not just risk.
