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LOS f: Evaluate and justify the return enhancement and/or risk diversification effects of adding an alternative investment to a reference portfolio (for example, a portfolio invested solely in common equity and bonds).
Q1. For use in evaluating hedge funds, which of the following is NOT a shortcoming of the Sharpe ratio?
A) It is a stand-alone measure that ignores the diversification contributions of a hedge fund to an overall portfolio.
B) It uses an arbitrary reference return.
C) It has had little success in predicting winners.
Q2. Suzanne Harlan has a large, well-diversified stock and bond portfolio. She wants to try some alternative investments, and has contracted with Laurence Philips, principal of Philips Finance, to help assemble a new portfolio.
Before agreeing to make recommendations for Harlan, Philips wants to determine whether she is a good candidate for alternative investments. He gives her a standard questionnaire that asks open-ended questions of all potential clients. Here are some of Harlan's comments:
- "I'm interested in high returns. I'm not afraid of risk, and I'm investing this money for the benefit of my eventual heirs." < be to investments additional any want I and year, every taxes in dollars million several pay>
- "While I expect risk on an individual-investment basis, I'd like to further diversify my portfolio and reduce overall risk."
- "I pay a lot of attention to expense and return data from my investments and track their performance closely."
- "I'm 65 years old and in excellent health."
After reading Harlan's responses and learning that she is a fairly sophisticated investor, Philips agrees to take her on as a client. Harlan has a lot of experience with investments and has some ideas what she'd like to do. She brings Philips the following ideas:
- “I have a colleague in the lumber business who says the furniture market is booming, and demand should increase in the year ahead. I'd like to purchase some lumber futures in the hopes that the price will rise.”
- “Hedge funds are earning excellent returns, and I expect them to continue doing so. However, other investors have told me that the difficulty lies in assessing the quality of the funds, because they are not well regulated. So I'm interested in purchasing a fund of funds, so I can diversify my risk while potentially sharing in some outsized returns.”
- “I already own a couple of REITs, but they represent a very small portion of my assets, and I'd like to increase my exposure to real estate. I've heard about pooled real estate funds, and I'm interested in one of those funds.”
- “My neighbors founded Kelly Tool and Die, a machine-tool business, 20 years ago and have not managed the company well. They have told me they are considering filing for bankruptcy. I have contacts in the manufacturing business overseas who would be interested in acquiring Kelly's assets. My Asian colleagues are willing to pay about 60% of book value for the assets, and my neighbors are willing to sell me the company for about 50% of the book value of its assets.”
Harlan then tells Philips that it is imperative that the returns of any investments he recommends must be in some way comparable to a benchmark.
Philips is not excited about the commodity idea and does not like funds of funds. However, he does know of several managers of individual hedge funds that might interest Harlan. He talks her out of the fund of funds idea and suggests she put her money in the Stillman Fund, which is run by one of his college friends. Fund manager Mark Stillman concentrates on spin-offs, generally buying the spun-off company and shorting the parent company.
Harlan seeks alternative investments that will both boost returns and diversify her portfolio. Which pair of her proposed investments represents the worst choices for each goal?
Net returns Diversification
A) Lumber Hedge funds
B) Real estate funds Hedge funds
C) Lumber Kelly Tool and Die
Q3. Based on her investment suggestions and survey answers, Harlan is least concerned with:
A) liquidity.
B) inflation.
C) volatility.
Q4. In his attempt to talk Harlan out of investing in a fund of funds, Philips addressed the advantages of investing in individual funds. Which of the following is his most compelling argument?
A) The likelihood of style drift in a fund of funds.
B) The lower expenses of individual funds.
C) The lack of benchmarks for a fund of funds.
Q5. The Stillman fund uses which strategy?
A) Relative value.
B) Hedged equity.
C) Merger arbitrage.
Q6. Which of Harlan's responses is most likely to make Philips consider her a bad candidate for alternative investments?
A) "I pay several million dollars in taxes every year, and I want any additional investments to be tax-friendly."
B) "I pay a lot of attention to expense and return data from my investments and track their performance closely."
C) "I'm interested in high returns. I'm not afraid of risk, and I'm investing this money for the benefit of my eventual heirs."
Q7. If Harlan is truly concerned about benchmarks, she should avoid which of her suggested investments?
A) Kelly Tool and Die.
B) None of them, benchmarks are available for all asset classes.
C) Hedge funds.
Q8. When added to a portfolio of stocks and bonds, based upon historical performance, we can expect distressed securities to contribute:
A) enhanced return but not diversification.
B) diversification but not enhanced return.
C) both enhanced return and diversification.
Q9. As an asset class, over the period 1990-2004, commodities would:
A) not have enhanced the return of a stock and bond portfolio and would have done worse except for the performance of the energy subgroup.
B) have enhanced the return of a stock and bond portfolio largely from the performance of the energy subgroup.
C) not have enhanced the return of a stock and bond portfolio largely from the underperformance of the energy subgroup.
Q10. When compared to a portfolio of publicly traded stocks, private equity is:
A) correlated with stocks but adds moderate diversification because of its idiosyncratic risk component.
B) uncorrelated with stocks and adds a high degree of diversification.
C) correlated with stocks and has a low idiosyncratic risk component so it adds virtually no diversification. | 
发表于 2009-3-11 09:27
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