Kuwait University
College of Administrative Sciences
Department of Finance and Financial Institutions
Portfolio Management: FIN 420
Fall 2013
Instructor’s Name: Dr. Fahad Almudhaf
Email: fmudhaf@cba.edu.kw
http://www.cba.edu.kw/fmudhaf
Office Hours: Sun, Tue and Thurs (10 AM – 11 AM), Mon and Wed (1:30-2 PM) or by appointment.
Prerequisite: FIN 320 (Principles of Investments)
Course Description:
The objective of this course is to help students learn how to manage their money. We will cover several
investment philosophies and learn how to construct and manage portfolios. The students will learn some
hands-on experience using Excel.
Required Textbook:
Analysis of Investments and Portfolio Management by Brown and Reilly, 9th ed., South-western Cengage.
Investment Philosophies: Successful Strategies and the Investors Who Made Them Work by Aswath
Damodaran, 1st ed.,Wiley.
Other Textbooks and journal articles:
You will be assigned several articles from Journal of portfolio management, Financial analysts journal,
Journal of asset management and Journal of investing. We will also read and discuss some research
reports published by KAMCO, MARKAZ and Global investment house. In addition, you will be assigned
some parts from other textbooks and resources such as Morningstar.
Grading:
Exam I
20%
Project/Research paper
25%
Valuation Assignment
10%
Attendance & Participation
5%
Final Exam
40%
Bonus (Trading game)
5%
Cheating:
I have a zero tolerance policy for cheating of any kind. If you cheat, you will fail the course and may face
further disciplinary actions. Plagiarizing in the assignment or project is considered as a form of cheating.
Excel Assignments:
We will have several assignments using Excel to calculate basic descriptive portfolio statistics, the
Variance-Covariance Matrix, estimate betas and SML, and produce an efficient frontier. We will also
cover portfolio optimization.
Project / Research paper:
Each student is going to choose an investment strategy and apply it to Kuwait stock exchange. The final
report is going to be due on Dec 2. Several students are going to be chosen to present their results to the
class.
Chapters and Topics from Brown and Reilly:
Ch 11: An introduction to security valuation
Ch 14: Company analysis and stock valuation
Ch 16: Equity portfolio management strategies
Ch 7: An introduction to portfolio management
Ch 25: Evaluation of portfolio performance
Chapters from Damodaran
Ch.8: Graham’s Disciples: Value Investing
Ch.9: The Allure of Growth Small Cap and Growth Investing
Ch. 14: A Road Map to Choosing an Investment Philosophy
Readings from CFA:
To be assigned during the semester.
The instructor has the right to change parts of the syllabus during the semester.