Index fund

Business Issue: The Asset Management Industry There are two general approaches to investment management – either utilizing active investment management or passive investment management. An active investment managers’ goal is to outperform a specific benchmark index by identifying mispriced securities. A passive managers’ goal is to closely track or replicate the return pattern of a specified benchmark index at a low cost. A passive manager does not make any attempt to seek out mispriced securities. Over the past several years, the rise of robo-advisor and FinTech which rely more on a passive management strategy, the asset management industry is facing fee pressure. As the passive managers drive down cost of investing, many in the investment…

The Fragile State Index (FSI), is an index created by the Fund for Peace in 2005 that analyses the fragility of 178 states. Ultimately, while the Fragility State Index (FSI) is a good starting point for analyzing the overall state strength of countries, taking into account the literature covered in the course thus far, the index contains flaws in indication and methodology that impedes it from being a comprehensive and definitive judgment of state fragility. The FSI is a tool that many…

A book by John Clifton Bogle, founder and former CEO of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Group and one of the greatest investors in the history, titled “Enough”(2009) is a relatively quick and good read in the financial literature genre. Although the book’s jacket is not very attractive— it has no photographs or illustrations, its title, in my opinion, is quite catchy, and attracts ones’ attention. Moreover, the title does encapsulate the main message—that the average investor feeds at the bottom of…

Arnie Oltmans. He is a retired Airforce pilot who runs Cornerstone Wealth Management. Nate taught us a great deal about retirement planning and strategies to improve financial management. His steps for success for when I get my first job have been engrained in me and will not soon be forgotten. Nate is a huge proponent of active retirement strategies and investing in foreign companies. This is a very difficult and time consuming method of investing, as well as very risky. Dr. Oltmans, on the…

Vanguard REIT Exchange Traded Fund (VNQ) Fund Summary Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ) is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that invests in equities issued by real estate investment trusts (REITs) which firms focus on purchasing office buildings or any other real properties (Investopedia 2015). Until 2016, the fund total net asset is about $64.2 billion and net asset value is around $80.2, moreover, it has a nearly 100% stocks as its assets (see Appendix 1). Its issuer is Vanguard which is one of the…

The study design of the Evans study was based upon the use of both direct interview and observational study methods. For the direct interview methods, social demographic data, medical variables, employment status, and subjective indicators were obtained via personal interview Interviewers were trained during a three-day training session to ensure uniform interview processes. Completed interviews were obtained from 90% of eligible patients (Evans et al, 1985). The responses to these interview…

(2005) developed walkability index (WI) to measure the characteristics of the physical environment that contribute to walkable neighbourhood design. Leslie et al. (2007) adapted the WI to Australia. WI for these studies contains four main data components. The first component is residential density which is the number of residential units per particular areal unit within a neighbourhood. A high residential density value shows that more people live in the area. The second data component of the…

Since CBPTT only accept integer, comma and x as constraint input. This input was converted to get the constraints information. Based on pizza ordering system, there were three constraints which is vegetarian cheese with roasted chicken, vegetarian cheese with ground beef and meat lover and mushroom. To convert this input into constraint input format, the index of each value must be known. Table 3.6 shows the index of each parameter value of pizza ordering system. Table 3.6 System index…

In all businesses and organisations, Databases are used to store all the core activities/information and often when there a major changes or restructure of the business the first process of many businesses is to change their databases to realign with their goal which makes them a valuable asset to any organisation. (Margulies, Pfleeger, Pfleeger 2015). Databases stores and maintain data at one central location so users can easily access it whenever needed. Through the use of Queries, databases…

A Portfolio manager’s role in the mutual fund is to maximize the wealth of the investors, through investment of assets in stocks of corporations. Every citizen/corporation has a social responsibility towards the society in which he lives in. Similarly mutual funds have a responsibility towards the society in which it operates. By investing on companies, investors seek to promote the growth and development of the company in anticipation of good results. They thus play a role in promoting the…