Investment Strategies and Portfolio Management

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Dates Location Tuition
Dec 1, 2008 - Dec 5, 2008 Philadelphia $8,950
Jun 15, 2009 - Jun 19, 2009 Philadelphia $8,950

This program was formerly called Pension Fund and Investment Management.

In volatile and complex markets, it is increasingly challenging to design an optimal investment portfolio for your organization, your clients, or yourself. You are presented with diverse opportunities in emerging markets, real estate, hedge funds, derivatives, and other alternative investments. As the choices increase, shaping, managing, and monitoring investment portfolios become more complicated. Which investments will generate the highest returns without exposing you to excessive risk?

Wharton’s Investment Strategies and Portfolio Management program — designed to meet the needs of finance professionals and others in the investments area — offers research-based tools and knowledge from the faculty of one of the world’s top finance departments. Leading experts on portfolios, investments, and markets provide diverse perspectives on portfolio management. They also examine specific investment areas such as stocks, bonds, derivatives, real estate, and global investments. This program provides a solid foundation for building optimal portfolios, as well as effective tools for making better investments.

Tuition for Philadelphia programs includes lodging and meals. Prices are subject to change. Course Consultants are available to provide more information on course specifics and discuss how this program might meet your needs. Please contact them at +1.215.898.1776 or by e-mail.


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Faculty from Wharton’s Finance Department and other experts cover key concepts in allocating assets and managing portfolios. Case studies and other exercises apply the learning from interactive lectures, offering hands-on applications of portfolio and investment strategy. Speakers and special topic sessions examine current issues such as the market outlook, investing in China and other emerging markets, alternative investments, and hedge funds.

Session topics for the Investment Strategies and Portfolio Management program

  • Modern Portfolio Theory
  • Asset Allocation
  • Behavioral Finance
  • Performance Measurement
  • Fund Evaluation and Manager Selection
  • Passive and Active Investment Vehicles
  • Valuation of the Equity Market
  • Value Versus Growth and Other Investment Styles
  • Bond Management: Duration, Immunization, and Credit Risk
  • International Markets
  • Real Estate Investment
  • Futures Contracts, Options, and Swaps
  • Portable Alpha
  • Hedge Funds and Other Alternative Investments
  • Emerging Markets
  • Retirement Challenges in the 21st Century

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The program is designed for investment professionals, including portfolio managers and analysts at mutual funds, pension funds, corporations, and other institutions sponsoring and providing investment vehicles for their employees and beneficiaries, and other providers of investment services. It is also appropriate for corporate retirement planners, financial planners, and employees of insurance companies, investment banks, and commercial banks who have portfolio management responsibilities.

The program also provides valuable insights to general managers, senior functional managers, and individual investors who want to manage their own investments or work more knowledgeably with professional managers. The faculty have expressly designed the program content to focus on the use of investment information, not its preparation, so even those with little or no experience in investment management will find the course content and its presentation comprehensible and practical.

We encourage companies to send cross-functional teams of executives to leverage the application and value of the program. Additional group benefits are available when four or more participants attend a program.

By attending this program you will:

  • Use practical frameworks and tools to make better asset allocation decisions.
  • Understand the risks and opportunities offered by derivatives, hedge funds, real estate, and other alternative investments.
  • Learn about the relative performance of popular trading strategies.
  • Master the current investment concepts, such as “portable alpha”.
  • Manage investments more effectively.
  • Learn about investing in emerging markets.
  • Work with portfolio managers more effectively.

Jeffery Jaffe, PhD JEFFREY JAFFE, PhD
Academic Director
Associate Professor of Finance
The Wharton School

Jeff Jaffe, a leading authority on asset allocation, has written widely on the topics of investment styles and stock returns, international investment returns, market anomalies, and the effects of information on security prices. He has been recognized for his outstanding teaching. Professor Jaffe has co-authored several textbooks on finance and is a frequent contributor to finance and economic journals.
undefined RICHARD J. HERRING, PhD
Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking
The Wharton School

Richard Herring is a leading expert on international banking and finance. A consultant to banks around the world — including the US Federal Reserve Board and the International Monetary Fund — he specializes in issues of risk and stability in banking, including real estate bubbles, credit risk, bank failures, liquidity shocks, and banking regulation. He is a winner of Wharton's David Hauck Award for Outstanding Teaching and a three-time winner of the Undergraduate Division Excellence in Teaching Award.
undefined A. CRAIG MACKINLAY, PhD
Joseph P. Wargrove Professor of Finance
The Wharton School

A. Craig MacKinlay has been a faculty member at Wharton since 1984. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Journal of Investment Consulting Advisory Board, a member of Morgan Stanley Institutional Equity Trading Academic Advisory Board and a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Finance Association and the NASD Economic Advisory Board. His research interests include empirical implementation and validation of asset pricing models, measuring investment performance, pricing of futures contracts, microstructure of financial markets, assessment of credit risk, and statistical methods in finance.

Professor MacKinlay has coauthored two books, one entitled the Econometrics of Financial Markets and another entitled A Non-Random Walk Down Wall Street. He has also published in numerous journals, including the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics. His honors include the Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security, and the Oxford University Press Century Publication Celebration 100 Best Papers of All Time Award.
Krishna Ramaswamy, PhD DR. KRISHNA RAMASWAMY, PhD
Edward Hopkinson, Jr. Professor of Investment Banking; Professor of Finance
The Wharton School

Professor Ramaswamy's research interests include investment management in stock and bond markets and the valuation and use of options and futures contracts. His current research includes tests of models of the term structure of interest rates, the relation between futures markets and cash markets, and the use of binomial models as approximations in valuing financial securities. His work has appeared in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and The Review of Financial Studies. Professor Ramaswamy has served on the board of directors of the American Finance Association and currently serves as a program advisor to the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance.

He has taught graduate-level courses on investment management, financial engineering, and on options and futures markets, as well as a doctoral course on research methods in finance. Professor Ramaswamy has conducted seminars on risk management, options and futures trading, and derivatives in the US and in Latin America (in association with The World Bank), in Singapore (in connection with Wharton Executive Education), and in India (for The Wharton Alumni Association of India).
undefined JEREMY SIEGEL, PhD
Russell E. Palmer Professor of Finance
The Wharton School

Jeremy Siegel is a world-renowned expert on the economy and financial markets. The author of the award-winning investment classic Stocks for the Long Run, now in its third edition, he recently expanded that book's ideas in The Future for Investors: Why the Tried and the True Triumph Over the Bold and the New. A frequent guest on CNN, CNBC, NPR, and other networks, he is a regular columnist for Kiplinger's and Yahoo! Finance and the winner of dozens of awards for his research, writing, and teaching. Professor Siegel served for 15 years as head of economics training at JP Morgan and is currently the academic director of the U.S. Securities Industry Institute.

"I'll have more confidence in discussing the major topics such as asset management. Also, l'll be clearer (back up with facts) when asserting opinions on asset allocation."
— Analyst, Investment Banking Firm

"I'll be better able to make educated assessments of our investment policy and asset allocations."
— Manager, Municipal Retirement Plan

"Jaffe was terrific! His teaching style is wonderful. He is interesting and involved. I really liked his teaching style!"
— Technical Manager, Insurance Company

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