ESG Investment Management Certificate

This course provides fundamental knowledge in key areas of investments. In particular, the course will focus on portfolio theory, asset pricing, equity valuation, fixed income valuation and risk, and option pricing and strategies.

ESG or sustainable investing is an investment discipline that considers environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria to generate long-term competitive financial returns and positive societal impact. According to the US SIF Foundation’s 2018 report, 26 percent of all professionally managed assets in the U.S. falls under ESG umbrella. This course focuses on ESG investing strategies, components of ESG analysis, ways to incorporate various ESG issues into the investment process, and various metrics and databases (e.g., Bloomberg, CDP, Sustainalytics) to perform ESG analysis and ESG screens. In addition, students will sharpen their skills on financial analysis, financial statement modeling, and equity research. 

This course teaches students to value equity securities, starting with the top-down approach and industry analysis/forecasting. It examines valuation theory, models and applications. Students analyze the IPO process to gain a detailed understanding of equity market operation, issues that affect these markets and where they are headed. More advanced topics include the implications of financial statements on cash flow and risk, the exploration of valuing distressed or bankrupt companies, closely held firms, and venture capital situations. The course requires extensive use of applied academic journals, the financial media, and resources available in the Trading Room.

This advanced applied course will extend the understanding of security selection and portfolio construction you developed in an Investments course and use a lot of concept you learned in a Statistics class. Our focus will be on the active quantitative management of equity portfolios. The course requires the extensive use of FactSet quantitative tools (Alpha Testing, Screening and Portfolio Analysis). We start with developing an understanding of the importance of investment styles and style benchmarks. We will then turn to studying quantitative factor models (Economic and Fundamental) for stock selection, portfolio construction, and risk management. We will end with the analysis of portfolio performance. This course is a hand-on applied course with a semester long quantitative portfolio manager project that will bring to life the concepts we are learning during the semester.