Active Portfolio Management

Active Portfolio Management

Portfolio management relies on the fact that particular style of analysis or management can generate returns that can beat the market. It involves higher than average costs and it stresses on taking advantage of market inefficiencies. It is implemented by the advices of analysts and managers who analyze and evaluate market for the presence of inefficiencies.

The active management approach of the portfolio management involves the following styles of the stock selection.

Top-down Approach: In this approach, managers observe the market as a whole and decide about the industries and sectors that are expected to perform well in the ongoing economic cycle. After the decision is made on the sectors, the specific stocks are selected on the basis of companies that are expected to perform well in that particular sector.

Bottom-up: In this approach, the market conditions and expected trends are ignored and the evaluations of the companies are based on the strength of their product pipeline, financial statements, or any other criteria. It stresses the fact that strong companies perform well irrespective of the prevailing market or economic conditions.

Passive Portfolio Management Strategy

Passive asset management relies on the fact that markets are efficient and it is not possible to beat the market returns regularly over time and best returns are obtained from the low cost investments kept for the long term.

The passive management approach of the portfolio management involves the following styles of the stock selection.

Efficient market theory: This theory relies on the fact that the information that affects the markets is immediately available and processed by all investors. Thus, such information is always considered in evaluation of the market prices. The portfolio managers who follows this theory, firmly believes that market averages cannot be beaten consistently.

Indexing: According to this theory, the index funds are used for taking the advantages of efficient market theory and for creating a portfolio that impersonate a specific index. The index funds can offer benefits over the actively managed funds because they have lower than average expense ratios and transaction costs.

Apart from Active and Passive Portfolio Management Strategies, there are three more kinds of portfolios including Patient Portfolio, Aggressive Portfolio and Conservative Portfolio.

• Patient Portfolio: This type of portfolio involves making investments in well-known stocks. The investors buy and hold stocks for longer periods. In this portfolio, the majority of the stocks represent companies that have classic growth and those expected to generate higher earnings on a regular basis irrespective of financial conditions.
• Aggressive Portfolio: This type of portfolio involves making investments in “expensive stocks” that provide good returns and big rewards along with carrying big risks. This portfolio is a collection of stocks of companies of different sizes that are rapidly growing and expected to generate rapid annual earnings growth over the next few years.
• Conservative Portfolio: This type of portfolio involves the collection of stocks after carefully observing the market returns, earnings growth and consistent dividend history.

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