Financial Screening Research : The Guidestone Investment Small Cap Equity Funds Essay

Portfolio management is an important factor that determines the performance of the portfolio. To perform well in the portfolio, it is not only essential to develop personal investment strategies, but analyzing current financial trend is also vital. Stock Trak is an online portfolio simulation that allows students to try out different investment strategies, and also get a hand on experience in what the real market trading conditions are. By managing the portfolio, I have acquired some new knowledge of investment strategies and also become more familiar with the current market by following closely to the financial headlines.

Fund flows are positively related to past performance, and better performing partnerships are more likely to raise follow-on funds and larger funds. Figure 1 aggregates the historical returns of Exhibition 1 and compares them to the fund sizes of Accel since 1983 vintage. The graph shows that there is a positive correlation between the historical returns of both the average and upper quartile with the fund size of Accel. However, it can be seen that as returns for top performers and average VC funds decline after 1996, Accel was still able to increase its fund size by 83%. Accel continued ability to raise larger funds implies not only the success of the company’s past strategic performance but also the existing high demand for investing with Accel. Hence, it would be justified that for the latest VC fund Accel has proposed to charge a carried interest of 30% rather than 20%. Our analysis then looks into this latest VC fund, Accel Partners VII, and forecasts the NPV and IRR of the investment under specific standard assumptions. Table 2 shows a part of our NPV and IRR calculations under different steady growth rate. It should be noted that for investors to be indifferent between investing in a typical 20/80 VC fund versus the 30/70 Accel VII fund, Accel must outperform the average in every NPV and IRR

Mid-Cap Equity Index Fund of State Street Global Advisors, with the same market index as that of the Amoco pre-merger plan.

This Fund is targeting the following annual return for Limited Partners; class A Shares will have a 5% per annum, plus a limited share of profits, on invested capital. Class B shares will have approximately 10% - 15% per annum. However, these anticipated returns (which is not a guarantee of performance) is based on good faith assumptions

• Managed growth or capital growth funds—structured to maximise the return from capital growth, that is, an appreciation in the value of the assets held. Less emphasis on income receipts. Higher risk profiles within an investment portfolio; therefore, will usually hold a higher percentage of funds in equity investments and a much smaller portfolio of fixed interest investments.

The fund is managed by two different investment advisors, which are Wellington Management Company and Vanguard’s Quantitative Equity Group. So investment strategies are summarized on its 2016 annual report as follows

Are you aware of how the funds are invested, and level of market risk being taken?

One of the methods utilized by this company is an asset allocation model, this model offers the clients multiple strategies they can use such as investing in growth fund this plan does not have much payout for the investor and the risk is higher. The next is Income fund

We took into consideration Robinsons not only wish to maintain their current lifestyle, but travel as well. Because the case emphasizes the Robinson’s desire to travel, our team wants to ensure that the Robinsons have enough disposable income to pay for potentially costly vacations. With travel being a substantial part of their goal, the couple’s portfolio must reach a high level of capital within the time constraints. The couple’s current financial advisors recommended that the couple moves their funds from a total market fund to a small-mid cap fund in order to help move closer to the amount needed for retirement. Market capitalization is defined as the worth of a company in a public market. In other words, the Robinsons have fund invested

BP America had a different defined contribution plan. The company offered employees the opportunity to buy shares of company stock, invest in a stable income fund managed internally and seven public mutual funds. The mutual funds included three active funds on US equities, one active fund on international equities, two active balanced funds that invested on bonds and stocks, and one index fund. Plan assets were valued at $2 billion, and the plan had 12,892 participants, making it smaller to Amoco’s. In contrast to Amoco’s plan, only 16% of the assets were invested in company stock, and 51% of the assets were invested in the stable income fund. The rest of the assets were invested mostly in one of the equity funds. Each participant on average had assets of $156,800 in the plan, and made annual contributions of about

1. The cause to the conflict in the rankings is that while the IRR ranking shows a percentage so that you can see what percentage you are making on certain amount, it does not show the size of the project.

In 2005, the vice president, chief investment officer, and their investment team met in order to compose a new asset allocation policy for the foundation’s investment portfolio worth $6.4 billion. One of the proposal’s suggestion was to reduce the overall exposure of the investment portfolio to domestic public equities. The proposal would also increase the allocation to absolute return strategies (with an “equitizing” and “bondization” program) and to TIPS. The new policy would slightly increase the Sharpe ratio of the foundation’s portfolio. They also needed to make a decision on a recommendation to pledge about 5% of the total value of the portfolio to Sirius V, which was the latest fund that specialized in global distressed real estate investments.

National Mutual Funds (NMF), founded in the 1940s, is one of the most important mutual fund companies in the brokerage industry in the United States. The company has extended from a mutual fund company to a financial center offering mutual funds, brokerage products including stocks and bonds, insurance products, and a variety of planning tools to help customers save for major life needs. However, since the market downturn, which is hurting many brokerage and mutual fund houses, NMF’s profits and operations have been affected significantly. To respond to the market slowdown, Harry Smallwood, President of NMF Retail Services, has come up with a directive to reorganize the call centers in the Retail Services Division in an effort

Mutual funds are an easy, convenient way to invest, without having to worry about choosing individual stocks. A mutual fund can be defined as a single portfolio of stocks, bonds, and/or cash managed by an investment company on behalf of many investors. The investment company manages the fund, and sells shares in the fund to individual investors. When one invests in a mutual fund, they become a part-owner of a large investment portfolio, along with all the other shareholders of the fund. The fund manager invests the contributions when shares are purchased, along with money from the other shareholders. Every day, the fund manager counts up the value of all the fund's holdings, figures out how many shares have been purchased by

The primary factors driving the decision to invest in Apple Corporation are the stability and growth of the company. According to Morningstar.com and marketwatch.com the factors are: