Investment Strategy for an Ethical Fund: Report and Analysis

Feedback Method: Mixture of Formative and Summative Assessment Feedback. Students receive comments on their ability to link theory and practice in terms of applying portfolio management techniques and interpreting financial information Assignment Outline The assignment is an individual report on investment strategy for an ethical fund.You are the portfolio manager of a UK-based fund and need build a portfolio of ethical assets (investments in the following industries are not allowed: Tobacco, Defence and Gambling).

The fund should be a balanced portfolio of equities and bonds and must include:
equities from 5 companies 
1 government and 1 corporate bond
All assets must be from ethical companies (see above).
You are borrowing £10,000,000 for three weeks at a rate of 4.5% (annualised quote) Your objective as portfolio manager is to produce a fund that delivers a return of 9% (annualised and net of borrowing costs) The holding period is 3 weeks (beginning and end of investment to be decided by you, the fund manager).

Trading is allowed during the investment period (transaction costs are assumed to be zero) Equities and bonds can be traded in the UK or any other foreign market of your choice No short-selling, nor use of other funds or derivative contracts allowed. 
Additional information:
Please note that at the end of your investment you will have to pay back the £10ml plus interest calculated for three weeks

?
Required:
Part 1

A)    By undertaking fundamental analysis of company shares select the country where you want to invest (preferably the UK) and two equity sectors that you expect to perform well in the coming 3 weeks. On the basis of your analysis (qualitative as well as quantitative such as company news, current and expected P/E ratios, EPS, Dividends, return and sales forecasts, etc.) select 5 companies that you expect to outperform the market index / benchmark (in the UK that could be FTSE100).

 

By undertaking fundamental analysis on government and corporate bonds (government debt, expectations on credit rating, changes in yield, duration, convexity) select 2 debt securities (bonds) that you expect to perform well in the coming weeks.
Hint: You can start by following the top-down approach, with a broad analysis of some of the major economies in terms of their macro-economic variables (GDP, Inflation, Unemployment rates) and the performance of their financial market indexes Once you have selected the country, examine the major sectors, i.e. pharmaceutical, IT, retail, transport, etc to evaluate how well they will performed, then select the individual assets using financial analysis

Required

B)    By using your own judgement and appropriate financial concepts determine the best asset allocation (% of capital allocated to each asset within the portfolio)
C)    Compare your results at the end of the investment period with a market index to be used as your benchmark (this must be representative of your investment and only related to Equity).

 
Part 2
Monitor the performance of the portfolio on a weekly basis (each asset price needs to be monitored at least once a week and you will need to explain any daily change in price > 5%). In terms of fundamental factors explain reasons for the changes you are observing. Critically evaluate the performance of your portfolios against the performance of the selected benchmark by using the Treynor ratio.

Part 3
Conclude and explain the differences you observe between your portfolio and the benchmark in terms of passive or active management theories and concepts.Format of Coursework:
1.    An electronic copy of your assignment report should be submitted via the module blackboard site, please do not include your student number nor your name as anonymous marking will be carried out.
2.    Copy or screenshots of an Excel spreadsheet, containing performance data used for all calculations where necessary should be submitted as part of the main Word file.
3.    Answer all questions in this coursework and present your investment plan and findings in a professionally formatted report.
4.    You must include the module title on the first page (Cover Page) of your report. The wordcount for the report is 1000 words (±10%), with size 12 font and 1.5 line spacing for the main text.
5.    List of References should be included if any materials were cited in the report, following the Harvard Referencing Style. Appendixes may be used where necessary.
 
You are expected to make full use of all the facilities and data sources offered by the University. Examples of sources of information include the Financial Times, the Economist, Fame database, DataStream and Bloomberg.The assignment must be submitted through ‘Turnitin’ no later than 13:00 on Thursday 25th November 2021.The rules on late submission and plagiarism are applied and fully enforced by the School.

Submission of Coursework
Unless explicitly stated otherwise in writing by the module leader, all coursework on this module is submitted via Blackboard only. It will automatically be scanned through a text matching system (designed to check for possible plagiarism).

• DO NOT attach a CA1 form or any other form of cover sheet;

To submit your assignment:
•    Log on to Blackboard at http://learning.westminster.ac.uk;

• Go to the relevant module Blackboard site;

• Click on the ‘Submit Coursework’ link in the navigation menu on the left-hand side, as advised by the module teaching team;

• Click on the link for the relevant assignment;

• Follow the instructions.