What is Portfolio Management?

An investor considering in securities is faced with the problem of choosing from among a large number of securities. His choice depends upon the risk return characteristics of individual securities. He would attempt to choose the most desirable securities and like to allocate his funds over this group of securities. Again he is faced with problem of deciding which securities to hold and how much to invest in each. The investor faces an infinite number of possible portfolios or groups of securities. Phases of Portfolio Introduction Portfolio Management comprises of many activities that are targeted at optimizing the investment of clients funds. There are basically five phases in the portfolio management and each of these phases makes up an integral part of the Portfolio Management and the success of it depends on the effectiveness in implementing these phases. Security Analysis

There are many types of securities available in the market including equity shares, preference shares, debentures and bonds. Apart from it, there are many new securities that are issued by companies such as Convertible debentures, Deep Discount bonds, floating rate bonds, flexi bonds, zero coupon bonds, global depository receipts, etc. It forms the initial phase of the portfolio management process and involves the evaluation and analysis of risk return features of individual securities. The basic approach for investing in securities is to sell the overpriced securities and purchase underpriced securities. The security analysis comprises of Fundamental Analysis and technical Analysis. Portfolio Analysis:

A portfolio refers to a group of securities that are kept together as an investment. Investors make investment in various securities to diversify the investment to make it risk averse. A large number of portfolios can be created by using the securities from desired set of securities obtained from initial phase of security analysis. 31

By selecting the different sets of securities and varying the amount of investments in each security, various portfolios are designed. After identifying the range of possible portfolios, the risk-return characteristics are measured and expressed quantitatively. It involves the mathematically calculation of return and risk of each portfolio.

Portfolio Selection

During this phase, portfolio is selected on the basis of input from previous phase Portfolio Analysis. The main target of the portfolio selection is to build a portfolio that offer highest returns at a given risk. The portfolios that yield good returns at a level of risk are called as efficient portfolios. The set of efficient portfolios is formed and from this set of efficient portfolios, the optimal portfolio is chosen for investment. The optimal portfolio is determined in an objective and disciplined way by using the analytical tools and conceptual framework provided by Markowitzs portfolio theory. Portfolio Revision

After selecting the optimal portfolio, investor is required to monitor it constantly to ensure that the portfolio remains optimal with passage of time. Due to dynamic changes in the economy and financial markets, the attractive securities may cease to provide profitable returns. These market changes result in new securities that promises high returns at low risks. In such conditions, investor needs to do portfolio revision by buying new securities and selling the existing securities. As a result of portfolio revision, the mix and proportion of securities in the portfolio changes. Portfolio Evaluation

This phase involves the regular analysis and assessment of portfolio performances in terms of risk and returns over a period of time. During this phase, the returns are measured quantitatively along with risk born over a period of time by a portfolio. The performance of the portfolio is compared with the objective norms. Moreover, this procedure assists in identifying the weaknesses in the investment processes.

Measurement of risk Risk refers to the possibility that the actual outcome of an investment will differ from the expected outcome. In other words we can say that risk refers to variability or dispersion. If any investment is said to invariable it means that it is totally risk free. Whenever we calculate the mean returns of an investment we also need to calculate the variability in the returns. Variance and Standard Deviation

The most commonly used measures of risk in finance are variance or its square root the standard deviation. The variance and the standard deviation of a historical return series is defined as follows: n-1 Beta A measure of risk commonly advocated is beta. The beta of a portfolio is computed the way beta of an individual security is computed. To calculate the beta of a portfolio, regress the rate of return of the portfolio on the rate of return of a market index. The slope of this regression line is the portfolio beta. It reflects the systematic risk of the portfolio. = Cov(x,y) S.d 33

Beta Table Value of Beta <0

Interpretation

Example

Asset generally Gold, which often moves in the opposite moves opposite to the direction as compared to the movements of the stock index market Movement of the Fixed-yield asset, asset is uncorrelated with whose growth is unrelated the movement of the to the movement of the benchmark stock market Movement of the asset is generally in the same direction as, but less than the movement of the benchmark Stable, "staple" stock such as a company that makes soap. Moves in the same direction as the market at large, but less susceptible to day-to-day fluctuation.

=0

0<<1

=1

Movement of the A representative asset is generally in the stock, or a stock that is a same direction as, and strong contributor to the about the same amount as index itself. the movement of the benchmark

>1

Movement of the asset is generally in the same direction as, but more than the movement of the benchmark

Volatile stock, such as a tech stock, or stocks which are very strongly influenced by day-to-day market news.

Investopedia explains 'Stock Market'

The stock market lets investors participate in the financial achievements of the companies whose shares they hold. When companies are profitable, stock market investors make money through the dividends the companies pay out and by selling appreciated stocks at a profit called a capital gain. The downside is that investors can lose money if the companies whose stocks they hold lose money, the stocks' prices goes down and the investor sells the stocks at a loss. The stock market can be split into two main sections: the primary market and the secondary market. The primary market is where new issues are first sold through initial public offerings. Institutional investors typically purchase most of these shares from investment banks. All subsequent trading goes on in the secondary market where participants include both institutional and individual investors. Stocks are traded through exchanges. The two biggest stock exchanges in the United States are the New York Stock Exchange, founded in 1792, and the Nasdaq, founded in 1971. Today, most stock market trades are executed electronically, and even the stocks themselves are almost always held in electronic form, not as physical certificates. If you want to know how the stock market is performing, you can consult an index of stocks for the whole market or for a segment of the market. Examples include the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq index, Russell 2000, Standard and Poors 500, and Morgan Stanley Europe, Australasia and Far East index.

The market in which shares of publicly held companies are issued and traded either through exchanges or over-the-counter markets. Also known as the equity market, the stock market is one of the most vital components of a free-market economy, as it provides companies with access to capital in exchange for giving investors a slice of ownership in the company. The stock market makes it possible to grow small initial sums of money into large ones, and to become wealthy without taking the risk of starting a business or making the sacrifices that often accompany a high-paying career.

History[edit]

Established in 1875, theBombay Stock Exchange is Asia's first stock exchange

In 12th century France the courretiers de change were concerned with managing and regulating the debts of agricultural communities on behalf of the banks. Because these men also traded with debts, they could be called the first brokers. A common misbelief is that in late 13th century Brugescommodity traders gathered inside the house of a man called Van der Beurze, and in 1409 they became the "Brugse Beurse", institutionalizing what had been, until then, an informal meeting, but actually, the family Van der [7] Beurze had a building in Antwerp where those gatherings occurred; the Van der Beurze had Antwerp, as most of the merchants of that period, as their primary place for trading. The idea quickly spread around Flanders and neighboring counties and "Beurzen" soon opened in Ghent and Rotterdam. In the middle of the 13th century, Venetian bankers began to trade in government securities. In 1351 the Venetian government outlawed spreading rumors intended to lower the price of government funds. Bankers in Pisa, Verona, Genoa and Florence also began trading in government securities during the 14th century. This was only possible because these were independent city states not ruled by a duke but a council of influential citizens. Italian companies were also the first to issue shares. Companies in England and the Low Countries followed in the 16th century. The Dutch East India Company (founded in 1602) was the first joint-stock company to get a fixed capital stock and as a result, continuous trade in company stock occurred on the Amsterdam Exchange. Soon thereafter, a lively trade in various derivatives, among which options and repos, emerged on the Amsterdam market. Dutch traders also pioneered short selling a practice which was banned by the [8] Dutch authorities as early as 1610. There are now stock markets in virtually every developed and most developing economies, with the world's largest markets being in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, India, China, Canada, [9] Germany (Frankfurt Stock Exchange), France, South Korea and theNetherlands.

Participants in the stock market range from small individual stock investors to large hedge fund traders, who can be based anywhere in the world. Their orders usually end up with aprofessional at a stock exchange, who executes the order of buying or selling. Some exchanges are physical locations where transactions are carried out on a trading floor, by a method known as open outcry. This type of auction is used in stock exchanges and commodity exchanges where traders may enter "verbal" bids and offers simultaneously. The other type of stock exchange is a virtual kind, composed of a network of computers where trades are made electronically via traders. Actual trades are based on an auction market model where a potential buyer bids a specific price for a stock and a potential seller asks a specific price for the stock. (Buying or sellingat market means you will accept any ask price or bid price for the stock, respectively.) When the bid and ask prices match, a sale takes place, on a first-come-first-served basis if there are multiple bidders or askers at a given price. The purpose of a stock exchange is to facilitate the exchange of securities between buyers and sellers, thus providing a marketplace (virtual or real). The exchanges provide real-time trading information on the listed securities, facilitating price discovery. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is a physical exchange, with a hybrid market for placing orders both electronically and manually on the trading floor. Orders executed on the trading floor enter by way of exchange members and flow down to a floor broker, who goes to the floor trading post specialist for that stock to trade the order. The specialist's job is to match buy and sell orders using open outcry. If a spread exists, no trade immediately takes placein this case the specialist should use his/her own resources (money or stock) to close the difference after his/her judged time. Once a trade has been made the details are reported on the "tape" and sent back to the brokerage firm, which then notifies the investor who placed the order. Although there is a significant amount of human contact in this process, computers play an important role, especially for so-called "program trading". The NASDAQ is a virtual listed exchange, where all of the trading is done over a computer network. The process is similar to the New York Stock Exchange. However, buyers and sellers are electronically matched. One or more NASDAQ market makers will always provide a bid and ask price at which they will [5] always purchase or sell 'their' stock. The Paris Bourse, now part of Euronext, is an order-driven, electronic stock exchange. It was automated in the late 1980s. Prior to the 1980s, it consisted of an open outcry exchange. Stockbrokers met on the trading floor or the Palais Brongniart. In 1986, the CATS trading system was introduced, and the order matching process was fully automated. From time to time, active trading (especially in large blocks of securities) have moved away from the 'active' exchanges. Securities firms, led by UBS AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Credit Suisse Group, already steer 12 percent of U.S. security trades away from the exchanges to their internal systems. That share probably will increase to 18 percent by 2010 as more investment banks bypass the NYSE and NASDAQ and pair buyers and sellers of securities themselves, according to data compiled by [6] Boston-based Aite Group LLC, a brokerage-industry consultant. Now that computers have eliminated the need for trading floors like the Big Board's, the balance of power in equity markets is shifting. By bringing more orders in-house, where clients can move big blocks of

stock anonymously, brokers pay the exchanges less in fees and capture a bigger share of the $11 billion a year that institutional investors pay in trading commissions.

Rewinding back to the Stock Market Trading history of India A: In the earlier days, stockbrokers kept scouting for 'natural' sites to conduct their trading activities, shifting from one set of Banyan trees to another. As the number of brokers kept increasing and the streets kept overflowing, they simply had no choice but to relocate from one place to another. Finally in 1854, trading in India found a permanent address, Dalal Street, now synonymous with the oldest stock Exchange in Asia, The Bombay Stock Exchange. With a heritage that goes back to over 130 years, BSE was the first stock exchange in the country to be granted permanent recognition under the Securities Contract Regulation Act, 1956. The exchange has played a pioneering role in the development of the Indian Securities Market - one of the oldest in the world. After India gained independence, the BSE formulated a comprehensive set of guidelines adopted by the Indian Capital markets. Even today, the BSE Sensex remains one of the parameters against which the robustness of the Indian Economy and finance is measured. The trading scenario in India then underwent a paradigm shift in 1993, when NSE or National Stock Exchange was recognized as a Stock Exchange. Within just a few years, trading on both the exchanges shifted from an open outcry system to an automated trading environment. Today, the Indian Securities market successfully keeps pace with its global counterparts through the use of modern day technology. Stock market milestones A: 1875 BSE established as 'the native Share and Stock Brokers Association' 1956 BSE became the first stock exchange to be recognized under the Securities Contract Act. 1993 NSE recognized as a stock exchange. 2000 Commencement of Internet trading at NSE. 2000 NSE commences derivatives trading (Index futures) 2001 BSE commences derivatives trading Primary and Secondary Markets

Primary Market A: An Issuer/Company enters the Primary markets to raise capital. They issues new securities in Exchange for cash from an investor (buyer). If the Issuer is selling securities for the first time, these are referred to as Initial Public Offers(IPO's). Summing up, Primary Market is the means by which companies float shares to the general public in an Initial Public Offering to raise capital. Eg. If the promoters of a private company, say XYZ makes its shares available to investors, company XYZ is said to have entered the primary market. Secondary Markets A: Once new securities have been sold in the Primary Market, an efficient mechanism must exist for their resale, if investors are to view securities as attractive opportunities. Secondary Market transactions are referred to those transactions where one investor buys shares from another investor at the prevailing market price or at whatever price both the buyer and seller agree upon. The Secondary Market or the Stock Exchanges are regulated by the regulatory authority. In India, the Secondary and Primary Markets are governed by the Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). For eg. If one of the investors who had invested in the shares of company XYZ sold it to another at an agreed upon price, a Secondary Market transaction is said to have taken place. Normally investors transact in securities using an intermediary such as a broker who facilitates the process Introduction to SEBI A: The Government of India established the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the regulatory body of stock markets in 1988. Within a short period of time, SEBI became an autonomous body through the SEBI Act passed in 1992, with defined responsibilities that cover both development & regulation of the market while also giving the board independent powers. Comprehensive regulatory measures introduced by SEBI ensured that end investors benefited from safe and transparent dealings in securities.

The BSE and NSE Most of the trading in the Indian stock market takes place on its two stock exchanges: the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE). The BSE has been in existence since 1875. The NSE, on the other hand, was founded in 1992 and started trading in 1994. However, both exchanges follow the same trading mechanism, trading hours, settlement process, etc. At the last count, the BSE had about 4,700 listed firms, whereas the rival NSE had about 1,200. Out of all the listed firms on the BSE, only about 500 firms constitute more than 90% of its market capitalization; the rest of the crowd consists of highly illiquid shares. Almost all the significant firms of India are listed on both the exchanges. NSE enjoys a dominant share in spot trading, with about 70% of the market share, as of 2009, and almost a complete monopoly inderivatives trading, with about a 98% share in this market, also as of 2009. Both exchanges compete for the order flow that leads to reduced costs, market efficiency and innovation. The presence ofarbitrageurs keeps the prices on the two stock exchanges within a very tight range. (To learn more, see The Birth Of Stock Exchanges.) Trading Mechanism Trading at both the exchanges takes place through an open electronic limit order book, in which order matching is done by the trading computer. There are no market makers or specialists and the entire process is order-driven, which means that market orders placed by investors are automatically matched with the best limit orders. As a result, buyers and sellers remain anonymous. The advantage of an order driven market is that it brings more transparency, by displaying all buy and sell orders in the trading system. However, in the absence of market makers, there is no guarantee that orders will be executed. All orders in the trading system need to be placed through brokers, many of which provide online trading facility to retail customers. Institutional investors can also take advantage of the direct market access (DMA) option, in which they use trading terminals provided by brokers for placing orders directly into the stock market trading system. (For more, read Brokers And Online Trading: Accounts And Orders.)