Investment Strategies (Online)

Managing a Stock Portfolio through Uncertainty

 Overview
Having the tools and knowledge to develop smart
investment strategies has perhaps never been more
critical than in our current global climate. You need a solid
understanding of the way markets work combined with
cutting-edge analytical skills and advanced quantitative
tools that can guide your stock selections and active
portfolio management through uncertainty and into the
future.
As a participant in the Investment Strategies (Online)
program, you’ll get an introduction to the fundamentals of
active investing as well as an incisive overview of capital
markets and modern risk management. And you can put
your knowledge into practice immediately.
Empirical Skills
Measure risk, analyze volatility, identify correlation, run
regression analyses, define the yield curve, and evaluate
drawdown.
Forecasting Regression
Explore bond markets along with expected return from
the bond market as a function of the yield of the bond and
the slope of the yield structure.
Active Management
Analyze performance of investment products over time,
understand bond market and yield, define passive vs.
active investing, learn the tools and limits of forecasting.

Duration
Four Ways This Program Delivers Value 9 weeks, including orientation week
4–6 hours per week

Foundational Knowledge Format

Deepen your understanding of capital markets, liabilities, Online
major asset classes, leverage, and databases.
Fee*
$3,500
*GST applicable to Singapore
residents.

Key Takeaways
For individual and professional investors who want to develop a strong foundation in investment strategies and
enhance their existing knowledge base, this programme provides a broad introduction to the fundamentals of active
investing and an overview of capital markets.
Better inform your market opinions with a deeper understanding of capital markets, major investable asset classes, the
challenges of leveraging and shorting, and how to use financial and economic databases.
Avoid common investment pitfalls by gaining an understanding of overleveraging and underappreciating
Make educated stock selections by measuring risk and applying risk management and analytical theory to your
choices
Become an active portfolio manager by analyzing the performance of investment products over time, understanding
bond market and yield, and knowing the tools for — and limits of — forecasting

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 Program
Experience
At Columbia Business School Executive Education peer-to-peer-learning and market-relevant coursework is essential
to the in-class experience. We have replicated this approach in our globally connected online classroom, so you will
learn from the professor, program leaders, case studies, guest speakers, and each other — no matter where you are in
the world.

Cohort-Based Real-World Case

Applications Studies
and Activities

Peer-to-Peer Self-Paced Live Office

Learning On-Demand Hours with
Video Lectures Program Leader

Program Leader
Guided Discussions

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 Your Learning Journey
Our approach is to provide the tools and frameworks that will help you measure risk, analyze bond markets, run
regression analyses, define the yield curve, and learn the tools of forecasting.

Key components of the program include:

Introduction to
Capital Markets

Portfolio Major Asset

Considerations Classes

Patterns in Risk and

Stock Returns Investing

Market Risk Active

Premium Management

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 Syllabus
Week 1 - Introduction to Capital Markets
Describe the difference between a stock and a
bond
Articulate the role assets, liabilities, and the
corporate balance sheet play in the stock
market
Compare and contrast the opportunity versus
the risk of leverage
Week 3 - Risk and Investing
Measure standard deviation in multiple
financial scenarios
Define a drawdown
Calculate the Sharpe ratio
Identify a Sharpe ratio and discuss its impact in
the asset management industry
Interpret a correlation matrix and calculate its
values
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Week 2 - Major Asset Classes
Identify the major assets classes (government
bond, stocks, etc.)
Identify meaningful financial data using
specific online resources, and be able to use
that data to calculate informative economic
indicators
Analyze a long history of stock markets around
the world and draw conclusions from the
historical data
Calculate and graphically show the log return
of a security over time
Use readily available financial data to identify
and calculate global historical stock and bond
returns
Week 4 – Active Management
Identify values for each piece of the Capital
Asset Pricing Model equation and then, using
available financial data, solve the equation
using these values
Calculate the price of the stock market using
the dividend discount model
Use the dividend discount model to calculate
the price of individual stocks
Discuss what it means for a market to be
efficient
 Week 5 – Market Risk Premium Part I
Discuss the attractiveness of a stock in terms
of an investment considering Discount rates
and Growth rate of future dividends
Calculate the dividend yield and discuss its
impact on whether a stock is “cheap” or
“expensive”
Identify low and high P/E ratio stocks and
discuss its impact on whether or not the stock
should be considered cheap or expensive
Articulate the principles of Shiller’s CAPE and
discuss if there is a relationship to three-month
T-bill rates
Week 7 – Patterns in Stock Returns I
Identify a characteristic of a stock’s expected
return that cannot be captured by the stock’s
beta
Articulate the current relevance of the size
effect and your beliefs about whether or not is
it still a useful tool in evaluating stock returns
Identify value and growth stocks and be able to
articulate the current relevance of the value
effect and your beliefs about whether or not is
it still a useful tool in evaluating stock returns
Week 9 – Portfolio Considerations
Discuss and show on a graph the ability to adjust the
risk and achievable return of two securities and
articulate which investment points on the graph
would lead to a strong or weak portfolio
Articulate the opportunity to balance risk and reward
of a combination of assets using the correlation
between said assets
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Week 6 - Market Risk Premium Part II
Calculate the implied CAPE ratio at different
levels of interest rates
Analyze the CAPE ratio today as a way to
estimate future stock returns
Compare and contrast the CAPE model and
the fed model’s predictive power to see which
one seems to give you cleaner predictions
Discuss the pros and cons of the CAPE model
and the Fed model
Week 8 - Patterns in Stock Returns II
Identify past winning and losing momentum
stocks and discuss their future prospects
looking at current market conditions
Articulate the profitability model and identify
and discuss the prospects of profitable and
non-profitable stocks
Discuss your thesis on what makes a good
stock selection, making sure to build in the
discipline of paying attention to historical stock
regularities
Discuss diversification across a portfolio of more
than two stocks
Articulate at what point you can consider your
portfolio diversified
 Real-world Tools And
Examples
Through the program you’ll be introduced to and will interact with real-world tools and examples that reinforce the
lessons presented in powerful and concrete ways. Some examples include:

FRED & Yahoo Finance

Use FRED, the online Federal Reserve Economic Database, Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database
website, and the Yahoo Finance database to collect data needed to complete financial calculations that will help you
make informed financial decisions in various activities.

Journal of Finance
Use this as a general resource to help expand your knowledge in investing and finance.

LTCM Hedge Fund

Explore this real-world example of a hedge fund that was publicly affected by leverage and learn what went wrong.

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 Case Studies
Expand your knowledge with case studies on the following topics:

Introduction to Short Selling

Get a primer on the market for securities' lending of equities in the U.S., including the
basic market structure and descriptions of the relevant market participants as well as a
survey of the current academic literature on the relationship between short selling and
securities' prices.

Beta Estimating
Use the simple linear regression model to calculate a stock's beta and learn the
difference between systematic and unsystematic risk and between R-squared and the
standard deviation of residuals as measures of forecasting uncertainty.

Measuring Investment Performance

Examine different approaches to measuring investment performance, including risk
exposure and the Sharpe and Information Ratios and apply them to a variety of mutual
funds to observe their effects.

Estimating the Equity Risk Premium

Learn why the equity risk premium is a critical input in most financial models, what its
purpose is, and learn three ways in which analysts attempt to determine it.

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 Program
Faculty
Harry Mamaysky
Professor of Professional Practice in the Faculty of Business

Mamaysky teaches capital markets and asset pricing to MBA, Masters, and PhD
students as well as Executive Education programs on the use of text data in
finance and on corporate bonds. His research focuses on equity, exchange rate,
volatility, and credit markets, the role of information in the trading process, and
on market microstructure. He has consulted for a quantitative investment firm
and for a nationally recognized statistical rating organization. Prior to his return
to academia, he founded the Systemic Risk Group at Citigroup and served as a
member of the firm’s Risk Executive Committee. He has held positions with Citi
Principal Strategies, Old Lane, Morgan Stanley, and Citicorp. He joined Colum-
bia Business School in 2015.

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 Certificate

Upon completion of this program, you will receive a certificate of participation from Columbia Business School Executive
Education—a powerful testament to your management capabilities.

C olumbi a Busi ness School Executi ve Educ at ion

hereby recognizes that

Participant Name
has participated in:

Investment Strategies (Online)

Date

Costis Maglaras
Dean and David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business

This certificate also counts towards one day to the Certificate in Business Excellence, which has select alumni and tuition benefits.
Your verified digital certificate will be issued in your legal name and emailed to you, at no additional cost, upon completion of the
program, as per the stipulated requirements. All certificate images are for illustrative purposes only and may be subject to change at
the discretion of the Columbia Business School Executive Education.

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 About Columbia
Business School
Columbia Business School is one of the world’s leading business schools and prides itself on its excellent faculty
who provide students with superior knowledge and thought leadership across divisions and disciplines. It was
established in 1916 to provide business training and professional preparation for undergraduate and graduate
Columbia University students.

Columbia Business School is the only Ivy League business school located in the global business hub of New York
City. The school has more than 47,000 alumni in 133 countries and about 70 alumni clubs globally. Columbia
Business School is a part of Columbia University, which has produced 101 Nobel Prize winners, 5 Founding Fathers
of the United States, 9 Justices of the United States Supreme Court, 29 Academy Award winners, and 29 heads of
state, including 3 United States Presidents.

About Emeritus
Columbia Business School Executive Education is collaborating with online education provider Emeritus to offer a
portfolio of high-impact online programs. These programs leverage Columbia's thought leadership in management
practice developed over years of research, teaching, and practice. By collaborating with Emeritus, we are able to
broaden access beyond our on-campus offerings in a collaborative and engaging format that stays true to the quality
of Columbia Business School Executive Education and Columbia as a whole. Emeritus' approach to learning is
formulated on a cohort-based design to maximize peer-to-peer sharing and includes live teaching with world-class
faculty and hands-on project-based learning. In the last year, more than 100,000 students from over 80 countries
have benefited professionally from Emeritus' courses.

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 The Learning
Experience

Our programs are designed to meet the needs of individual learning styles, while also leveraging the power of peer
learning. This is achieved through a user-friendly learning platform that enables participants to easily navigate the
program content to achieve learning objectives.

Keeping It Real
Our pedagogical approach is designed to
bring concepts to life, including:
• Bite-sized learning techniques
• Real-world application
• Peer learning discussions
• Learning by doing with “try-it” activities

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 The Learning
Experience

Keeping It Interesting
Our globally connected classrooms enable participants to seamlessly interact with their peers to complete group
assignments and stay on track toward program completion — having culturally enriching encounters along the way.

Keeping It Convenient
Access to program content is flexible and available through multiple devices, allowing working professionals to
easily manage schedules and learn remotely — anytime, anywhere. Participants enrolled in the program obtain
access to learning materials in a modular approach, with new content released weekly. Program modules include a
variety of teaching instruments, such as:

• Video lectures
• Discussions
• Class materials: articles, cases

To further personalize the program modules, live teaching sessions are scheduled during the program, often with
Q&A. For participants who are unable to attend these sessions live, a recording is made available so nothing is missed.
Our industry-leading learning platform allows participants to create a profile, connect and collaborate with peers, and
interact with academic/industry experts such as program leaders and teaching assistants. Assignments are often
linked to participants' real-world situations, making concepts inherently practical.

Program Requirements
Programs may necessitate the usage of various software, tools, and applications. Participants will be informed about
these additional requirements at the registration stage or when the program begins. Our program advisors are also
available to respond to any queries about these requirements.

To access our programs, participants will need the following:

• Valid email address • Microsoft Office and PDF viewer to access content
• Computing device connected to the internet: such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations,
PC/laptop, tablet, or smartphone PDF files, and transcripts
• The latest version of their preferred browser to
access our learning platform

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Easily schedule a call with a program advisor to
learn more

Schedule A Call

You can enroll for the program here

Enroll

Connect With A
Program Advisor

Email: columbia@emeritus.org
Phone: +1 718-550-0890