Posted: September 16th, 2017

finance – Australian Financial Review-Your task is to collect data for the following investments for the preceding

Your task is to collect data for the following investments for the preceding five years and write a research essay for your client on the performance of the investments during this period. Keep in mind that the discussion is important for the financial plan that you may recommend to your client.
Your discussion should be based on your understanding of theory and practice that you have acquired thus far in this course.
Investments covered for the assignment are: Property, Managed funds and Australian shares.
Your assignment should be word formatted properly referenced and carefully proof read.
Note: In the information below it says minimum three years data. It means if you use data for less than five years you are not likely to get 100% and if you used data for less than three years your assignment is not acceptable.
Structure for the essay:
Abstract
Introduction
Analysis
Conclusion
References
Annexures
Analysis of the performance of the three asset classes managed funds, Australian shares and Property. To perform this you can research existing views presented in published academic research (e.g. Journals), text book material (only marginally and for articulation of theory) and any well researched published opinion pieces (e.g. published in Australian Financial Review). Data for Managed funds and Australian shares is easily accessible through ASX web site. For property it is a bit harder to find for individual properties but for property indices you can access this from ASX (listed property trusts in the past; abbreviated as LPTs and currently referred to as Australian real estate investment trusts abbreviated as
A-REITs). You can either use a selection of shares, managed funds and properties or use some benchmark indices to complete your analysis and make your arguments about each type of investment. In your calculations also show estimations of returns and risk of each of the asset classes. Use minimum three year high frequency data (weekly/monthly).
Annexure: Include all your detailed calculations and detailed tables here (in your analysis section only include summarised tables). If you use Excel for your analysis of data, all Excel spreadsheet calculations (with formulae) should be appended as annexures.
Break up of marks: Assignment will be marked out of 100 and scaled to reflect total of 20 marks allocated for this assessment item.

Calculation 30%
Analysis 40%
Overall quality 20% (based on structure, coherence of argument, language, spelling etc)
Presentation/References 10%
Note: In terms of calculations as a minimum you should calculate periodical returns for the sample period (five/three year’s monthly/weekly) and then mean returns for the sample period. For risk you should calculate standard deviation and then riskadjusted returns – Sharpe ratio to make a comparison of the assets.
You can also plot graphs of the returns of the five/three year period to show how different assets have performed over the period.
You can also talk about the concept of diversification in your essay. Construction of optimal portfolio is not required for the assignment.
Information on resources posted on Learning@Griffith
? Some research Resources:

Australian Financial Review:
http://www.afr.com/personal_finance/investment_guide/investment_guide_funds/
Australian Stock Exchange: http://www.asx.com.au/resources/personal-investors.htm
Australian Stock Exchange – Sector Indices: http://www.asx.com.au/products/sectorindices.htm
ASX Property Trusts: http://www.asx.com.au/products/managed-funds-product-list.htm
Property Market: http://www.myrp.com.au/?
mkwid=sMd1lRpBj&pcrid=13922347564&pkw=property
%20report’&pmt=b&gclid=CIvQr8WajbkCFYQhpQodxHAAjA
(Only small proportion of information on the property market is free but there is number of resources available that can be accessed free and may be helpful for you)
Risk and return: https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/investing/investing-basics/risk-and-return
Measure of total risk (Standard deviation) – Calculating mean and standard deviation using
Excel: http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/normal/stdexcel.htm
Note:
1. You can also use other data sources such as yahoo finance and google finance for your data. Some students may find yahoo finance or google finance easier to navigate through because of familiarity with the search engines. Remember to appropriately reference your source.
2. Links were working at the time of test. However, there may be minor changes to the location of the pages on the mother website.

 

 

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