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.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has grown in presence in asset management and has revolutionized the sector in many ways. It has improved portfolio management, trading, and risk management practices by increasing efficiency, accuracy, and compliance. In particular, AI techniques help construct portfolios based on more accurate risk and return forecasts and more complex constraints. Trading algorithms use AI to devise novel trading signals and execute trades with lower transaction costs. AI also improves risk modeling and forecasting by generating insights from new data sources. Finally, robo-advisors owe a large part of their success to AI techniques. Yet the use of AI can also create new risks and challenges, such as those resulting from model opacity, complexity, and reliance on data integrity.

During the eight years since the publication of Maintenance Excellence: Optimizing Equipment Life-Cycle Decisions the business environment has changed drastically. Globalization, consolidation, and changes in technology challenge asset management and maintenance professionals to be more efficient. Globalization and consolidation have been particula

This book provides the fundamentals of asset management. It takes a practical perspective in describing asset management. Besides the theoretical aspects of investment management, it provides in-depth insights into the actual implementation issues associated with investment strategies. The 19 chapters combine theory and practice based on the experience of the authors in the asset management industry. The book starts off with describing the key activities involved in asset management and the various forms of risk in managing a portfolio. There is then coverage of the different asset classes (common stock, bonds, and alternative assets), collective investment vehicles, financial derivatives, common stock analysis and valuation, bond analytics, equity beta strategies (including smart beta), equity alpha strategies (including quantitative/systematic strategies), bond indexing and active bond portfolio strategies, and multi-asset strategies. The methods of using financial derivatives (equity derivatives, interest rate derivatives, and credit derivatives) in managing the risks of a portfolio are clearly explained and illustrated.

Stocks and bonds? Real estate? Hedge funds? Private equity? If you think those are the things to focus on in building an investment portfolio, Andrew Ang has accumulated a body of research that will prove otherwise. In this book, Ang upends the conventional wisdom about asset allocation by showing that what matters aren't asset class labels but the bundles of overlapping risks they represent.

This book analyses investment management policies for institutional investors. It is composed of four parts. The first one analyses the various types of institutional investors, institutions which, with different objectives, professionally manage portfolios of financial and real assets on behalf of a wide variety of individuals. This part goes on with an in-depth analysis of the economic, technical and regulatory characteristics of the different types of investment funds and of other types of asset management products, which have a high rate of substitutability with investment funds and represent their natural competitors. The second part of the book identifies and investigates the stages of the investment portfolio management. Given the importance of strategic asset allocation in explaining the ex post performance of any type of investment portfolio, this part provides an in-depth analysis of asset allocation methods, illustrating the different theoretical and operational solutions available to institutional investors. The third part describes performance assessment, its breakdown and risk control, with an in-depth examination of performance evaluation techniques, returns-based style analysis approaches, and performance attribution models. Finally, the fourth part deals with the subject of diversification into alternative asset classes, identifying the common characteristics and their possible role within the framework of investment management policies. This part analyses hedge funds, private equity, real estate, commodities, and currency overlay techniques.

The Road to AUM provides investment managers and business owners, marketing and sales professionals with a roadmap to institutional asset growth based on observations and comments directly from the institutions themselves. Whether a firm is launching, emerging, stuck in neutral, or moving in a new direction, a view of the road ahead is paramount.