Portfolio Theory and Performance Analysis

For many years asset management was considered to be a marginal activity, but today, it is central to the development of financial industry throughout the world. Asset management's transition from an "art and craft" to an industry has inevitably called integrated business models into question, favouring specialisation strategies based on cost optimisation and learning curve objectives. This book connects each of these major categories of techniques and practices to the unifying and seminal conceptual developments of modern portfolio theory.

In these bear market times, performance evaluation of portfolio managers is of central focus. This book will be one of very few on the market and is by a respected member of the profession.

• Allows the professionals, whether managers or investors, to take a step back and clearly separate true innovations from mere improvements to well-known, existing techniques
• Puts into context the importance of innovations with regard to the fundamental portfolio management questions, which are the evolution of the investment management process, risk analysis and performance measurement
• Takes the explicit or implicit assumptions contained in the promoted tools into account and, by so doing, evaluate the inherent interpretative or practical limits

Noel Amenc is professor of finance at the Edhec Business School, where he is in charge of the Risk and Asset Management research centre.  Noel is also associate editor of the Journal of Alternative Investments. He is the author of numerous publications in the domain of portfolio management, notably in the areas of asset allocation and performance measurement.  He also holds significant positions within the asset management industry, including head of research with Misys Asset Management Systems.

Veronique Le Sourd  holds an advanced graduate diploma in applied mathematics from the Université Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris VI) and has worked as a research assistant within the finance and economics departments of HEC Business School.  She is currently a research engineer for Misys Asset Management Systems and associate researcher with the Edhec Risk and Asset Management Research Centre.