7247AFE Ethics and Alternative Investments

7247AFE Ethics and Alternative Investments

Written Assignment – Task Description

You have been recently promoted to a senior investment analyst at QLD Titanium Equity Management (Q10), a large asset management company with A$50 million AUM located in Brisbane CBD. The company’s core investment focuses on domestic and international equity markets, however, investments in stock markets have provided lower than expected returns in the recent years.

Q10 CEO has assigned you to investigate new opportunities to enhance company’s investment performance. Q10 would like to expand its investments focus towards alternative investments (such as real estates, hedge funds, private equities, commodities, carbon markets, managed futures, distressed securities and/or others) but senior management has little expertise in this area.

The CEO has requested you to produce a professional investment appraisal report for 2 alternative investments and deliver to him no later than 1 October 2016 by 5pm. Your analysis must include up-to-date analysis with at least 5 years of historical data.

Your report, at minimum, must outline the following:

1. Purpose of the report and rationale for selecting the 2 alternative investments
2. Identify and justify any special emphases in due diligence on the selected alternative investments.
3. Provide a survey of literature on the alternative investments you have selected (i.e. a literature review of completed (i) academic and/or (ii) industry research on the alternative investments).
4. Review the alternative investment characteristics based on liquidity, returns, risk, skewness, kurtosis, correlation, beta, Sharpe ratio and/or other performance measures.Benchmark this against domestic and international equity markets "as I am studying in Australia the domestic Australian benchmark is ASX200" and the international benchmark I prefer S&P500 but you have the choice to choose. What he means by benchmark is that I have to compeer them with the domestic and international benchmark.

• When choose the alternative investment it has to be away from the same investment for example " you cannot choose gold and copper because all of them under the commodity so that I prefer " Real estate and commodity or Hedge funds or anything you choose but I want the real estate to be chosen. (We are using Bloomberg to get the data so if you can use it that would be great.

1. 1. Provide a detailed analysis of the alternative investments merits (or otherwise).

1. 1. State the time period and data source used for the analysis.

1. Advise Q10 CEO and senior management whether to invest in the alternative investments or otherwise.

Your report should be within 2,000 words (±10%).

Report submission online via SafeAssign on Learning@GU course site by 1 October 2016 at 5pm.

Please see next page for formatting requirements.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS

1. Essential report information on cover page

Please indicate clearly your name, email, student ID, position in the company, date of report and word count.

1. Language/Font/Font size

Please write your report in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). You are encouraged to use “Calibri” font throughout your report. Font size should be at least 11 point.

1. Use of word processing software

It is important that the file is saved in Word document format (.doc or .docx). Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the ‘spell-check’ and ‘grammar-check’ functions of your word processor.

1. Line spacing/Page spacing/Page numbering/Page margins

The report should be presented with double-spaced line spacing and must not a huge gap between sections. For example, if you finish section one on half of a page, continue next section on the remaining half page. Please be environmentally friendly. Your report pages must be numbered at lower centre. Page margins should be set to 2cm on top and bottom; 2.5cm on left and right.

1. Tables

Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables can be placed next/below/after to the relevant text in the article. Tables must be numbered consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the report. For example, Table 1: “Insert your table title” ß this must be placed on top of tables.

1. Graphs/Figures/Images captions

Ensure that each graph/figure/image has a caption and should be numbered consecutively. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. For example, Figure 1: “Insert your caption” ß this must be placed on top of graphs/figures/images.

1. References/Referencing format

Double check that references are in correct format. Only those papers that are being referenced are to be included in the references section. Papers not being referenced in text must be omitted. In general, try to limit the number of references to about 15. Referencing format can be either APA or Harvard style.

1. Citation in text/report

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa).

1. Appendices

You can use appendix in the report and it should be numbered consecutively. For example, Appendix 1: “Insert appendix title” ß this must be placed on top of appendices. NOTE: Please do not attach/present your raw data/historical data as part of the appendix. You do not have to present your data at all! J