Financial Times Guide to Exchange Traded Funds and Index Funds, The

<p>INTRODUCTION – By Matthew Vincent, FT</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 1 – Investing 2.0 The Revolution Begins</p> <p>· &nbsp; Decline of the stockpicker and now the decline of active fund manager</p> <p>· &nbsp; Need to emphasize cost in this low return world</p> <p>· &nbsp; Investors waking to the reality that they have to diversify especially after bear markets</p> <p>· &nbsp; The rise of asset class investing, related to but separate from ETfs and index funds</p> <p>· &nbsp; The rise of the dreaded term beta…</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 2 – A BIT OF THEORY</p> <ul> <li>Where it all came from academically. The academic revolt</li> <li>The efficient markets theory</li> <li>The fundamentalists wade in</li> <li>The first ETF structures and index funds. The legendary John Bogle and the Vanguard Phenomena</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 3 – WHAT ARE INDEX OR TRACKER FUNDS?</p> <ul> <li>Index mutual funds and how they developed from these into these…</li> <li>Exchange Traded funds, US Style</li> <li>European ETFs – the rise of the swap</li> <li>ETNs in the US and certificates in Europe</li> <li>ETCs (commodities) and synthetic ETFs</li> <li>The mechanics – full replication, partial replication, fully synthetic replication</li> <li>Comparing ETFs vs traditional mutual funds vs index mutual funds</li> <li>Advantages of different structures and the regulatory structure</li> <li>New innovations – inverse ETFs, multi-ETF portfolios, actively managed ETFs</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 4 – THE FIDDLY DETAIL….RISKS, CAVAETS and the INIDICES</p> <ul> <li>What to watch out for – premiums/discounts, tax complications, tracking error, charging (some are expensive – the 1% rule)</li> <li>Counter Party Risk </li> <li>Why the index matters – not all indices created equally. Some are too concentrated, carry currency risks, aren’t very liquid, and some are just pointless</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 5 – THE RISE OF THE FUNDAMENTALISTS</p> <p>Guest writer – Rob Davies, fund manager of the Munro Fund, a fundamental index fund</p> <ul> <li>The academic theory surrounding fundamental indexing </li> <li>Does it work ? The results so far</li> <li>How to implement it via a fund – black boxes, dividends and the measures used</li> <li>Will it work in the future – might value investing be dead ?</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 6 – BIG THEME INVESTING AND INDEX FUNDS</p> <p>Guest Writer – Stephen Barber, Head of Research at Selftrade</p> <ul> <li>Momentum investing works and particularly a focus on big themes, big structural changes</li> <li>Emerging Markets</li> <li>Alternative Assets</li> <li>New Energy and Green markets</li> <li>Infrastructure and utilities</li> <li>Commodities</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 7 – RUNNING A PORTFOLIO : SOME BASICS</p> <p>Guest Writer – James Norton, Head of investment at Evolve Financial Planning</p> <ul> <li>A passive portfolio – why it matters vs Active</li> <li>Buy and Hold</li> <li>Asset Allocation explained – correlation and diversification</li> <li>Inflation</li> <li>Income investing</li> <li>Long Term returns ?</li> <li>The GlidePath</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 8 – ACTIVE PORTFOLIOS USING ETFS</p> <p>Guest Writer – Mark Glowrey, Investors Intelligence</p> <ul> <li>How to combine ETFs into an active portfolio using technical analysis</li> <li>The measures sued</li> <li>Running the portfolio</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>CHAPTER 9 – PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER INTO A PORTFOLIO THAT WORKS FOR YOU !</p> <ul> <li>Asset Class Investing</li> <li>Value vs Growth vs Momentum – all work but difficult to capture these strategies</li> <li>Importance of international diversification</li> <li>Lazy Portfolios and why they’re so useful</li> <li>The idea behind building your own MASTER PORTFOLIOS</li> <li>Lifeycle Investing</li> <li>Our MASTER PORTFOLIOS – the assumpti</li> </ul>