Postgraduate Course: Investment Management (CMSE11665)
Course Outline
| School | Business School |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Investment Management is a research-led course designed to help students gain a broad understanding of key issues in investment management. Topics include investment theory and application, financial market drivers, investor behavioural biases, trading, risk management, and ESG investing. The module provides conceptual insights with some technical application but is not heavily focused on numerical and quantitative analysis. |
| Course description |
This module covers both theoretical and practical aspects of investment management, helping students deepen their understanding of the investment industry, investment theory, and practices. We will explore the key forces driving fluctuations in global financial markets, the challenges investors face in decision-making, and the impact of investment on the real economy. Throughout the module, students will develop communication, quantitative, and critical thinking skills essential for effective investment decision-making.
Outline content
Topics covered in this course include context, structures, and strategies around managing investor portfolios, trading, risk management, and alternative investments. The topics includes:
1. Theory and Applications to Investment Management
2. Cyclicality
3. Key Drivers of Financial Markets
4. Interest rate
5. Investment Instruments
6. Trading, Risk Management, and Hedge Funds
7. Market implied information
8. Behavioral Bias
9. ESG Investing
10. Contemporary Topics in investment
Student learning experience
This course places a great emphasis on independent learning. Before each lecture, students will be provided with a list comprising 2-3 core readings and a number of additional readings. Students are expected to read the core readings and ideally most if not all of the additional ones. The lectures will explore particular aspects of the readings and attempt to help students put materials in context. They are not a substitute for the readings. The nature of the material means that in most cases there is no single acceptable answer. Students are expected to learn how to argue a case that is supported by academic theory and empirical evidence.
Tutorial/seminar hours represent the minimum total live hours (online or in-person) a student can expect to receive on this course. These hours may be delivered in tutorial/seminar, lecture, workshop or other interactive whole class or small group format.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
166 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
50 %,
Coursework
0 %,
Practical Exam
50 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
50% Class test (Individual) - 2,000 words - Assesses all course Learning Outcomes
50% Presentation (Group) - includes 30% peer review moderation - Assesses course Learning Outcomes 1,3,4 |
| Feedback |
Formative: Feedback will be provided throughout the course.
Summative: Feedback will be provided on the assessments within agreed deadlines. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand and critically discuss return and risk objectives of individual and institutional investors.
- Understand current issues in investment management practices in the context of contemporary finance theories.
- Understand and critically evaluate return and risk profiles of different asset classes and trading strategies.
- Understand the interplay between market participants and its implications for the financial markets.
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Reading List
Maginn, Tuttle, Pinto, and McLeavey (2007), Managing Investment Portfolios: A Dynamic Process. CFA Institute and Wiley. ISBN 0470080140.
Bodie, Kane and Marcus (2011), Investment and Portfolio Management
Gliner, Global Macro Trading: Profiting in a New World Economy, 2014 ISBN 9781118420386 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Cognitive Skills
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Be self-motivated; curious; show initiative; set, achieve and surpass goals; as well as demonstrating adaptability, capable of handling complexity and ambiguity, with a willingness to learn; as well as being able to demonstrate the use digital and other tools to carry out tasks effectively, productively, and with attention to quality.
Understand how to manage and sustain successful individual and group relationship in order to achieve positive and responsible outcomes, in a range of virtual and face-to-face environments.
Autonomy, Accountability and Working with Others
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Understand oneself and others, through critical reflection, diversity awareness and empathic development, in order to maximise individual and collective resilience, and personal and professional potential.
Communication, ICT, and Numeracy Skills
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Convey meaning and message through a wide range of communication tools, including digital technology and social media; to understand how to use these tools to communicate in ways that sustain positive and responsible relationships.
Critically evaluate and present digital and other sources, research methods, data and information; discern their limitations, accuracy, validity, reliability and suitability; and apply responsibly in a wide variety of organisational contexts.
Knowledge and Understanding
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Demonstrate a thorough knowledge and understanding of contemporary organisational disciplines; comprehend the role of business within the contemporary world; and critically evaluate and synthesise primary and secondary research and sources of evidence in order to make, and present, well informed and transparent organisation-related decisions, which have a positive global impact.
Identify, define and analyse theoretical and applied business and management problems, and develop approaches, informed by an understanding of appropriate quantitative and/or qualitative techniques, to explore and solve them responsibly.
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| Keywords | Investment Management |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Chao Yin
Tel:
Email: Chao.Yin@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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