Free CFA-Level-III Exam Braindumps (page: 35)

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Kim Simpson, CFA, manages a $75 million multi-cap growth portfolio. Simpson utilizes a growth at a reasonable price (GARP) investment strategy and her investment universe consists of small, medium and large capitalization stocks. She turns the entire portfolio over once each year. Simpson is concerned about the amount of trading costs she has generated through the implementation of her investment strategy. Simpson decides to conduct a trade cost analysis with the cooperation of her trader, Janet Long, CFA. Simpson believes the results of the trading analysis can be used to improve trading performance and help to refine her investment strategy. The first trade they examine is a purchase of 2000 shares of Technology Company that was completed using a market order. Simpson remembers adding to her Technology Company position based on her analyst's recommendation that the company was going to generate earnings significantly above the consensus estimate in a soon to be released earnings report. The order was split into two trades as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Technology Company buy order for 2000 shares

In conducting a comprehensive analysis of the trading markets, Simpson states that she is most concerned about market liquidity. Simpson defines a market with good liquidity as one with diversity of opinion, many buyers/sellers and relatively wide bid-ask spreads. In addition to reviewing market liquidity, Simpson believes that, in order to assess market quality, both the ease with which investors can obtain accurate information and the certainty that a trade will be completed must be evaluated.
Simpson and Long review their trade of Nano Corporation, a small biotechnology company. Simpson used a limit order because her analyst had established a specific buy target and she wanted to hold down transaction costs. To handle both explicit and implicit trading costs, Simpson measures execution costs using implementation shortfall. The buy order for 100,000 shares of Nano stock has the following timeline:
• Nano stock price closes at $35.00 per share.
• Day one: Simpson places a limit order for 100,000 shares of Nano stock at $34.75 per share or better at the opening of trading. However, Nano's stock never falls below $35.00 per share and closes at $36.50 per share.
• Day two: Simpson adjusts her limit order price to $37.00 per share or better. Long is able to fill 50,000 shares of the order at $36.75 per share. Nano's stock climbs to $38.00 per share during the day and Simpson moves the limit price to $40.00 per share or better. Long completes the purchase of the remaining 50,000 shares of Nano at $40.00 per share, which is also the closing price of Nano's stock.
• The commission for each block trade is $2,500.
Long suggests implementing the Best Execution concept as established by the CFA Institute in its Trade Management Guidelines. Long states best execution would accept a high portfolio turnover strategy provided the overall portfolio value is greater after trading costs. Long asserts that her professional relationships are integral to best execution.

Regarding Long's statements on best execution, determine whether her mention of professional relationships and high portfolio turnover are most likely correct or incorrect.

  1. Only the statement about business relationships is correct.
  2. Only the statement about high portfolio turnover is correct.
  3. Both statements are correct.

Answer(s): A

Explanation:

CFA Institute's Trade Management Guidelines established the following four characteristics for Best Execution, as summarized on page 132, Level 3 SchweserNotes Book 5:
1. Trading relationships and practices are important elements of best execution.
2. Trading is a negotiated agreement between two parties that cannot be known before the fact.
3. Trading cannot be viewed separately from the investment decisions. As long as trading achieves the value of the investment decision it can be considered best execution.
4. Trading should be evaluated in totality and not on any single trade. In other words, the trading process should be evaluated through all trades that were performed.
Business relationships are indeed integral to the concept of best execution. Also, high portfolio turnover, in and of itself, does not necessarily imply the manager is not pursuing a best execution strategy. Best execution, concerned with the implementation of portfolio decisions, implies that trades should generate the intended value, and this says nothing about the frequency of trading. In the vignette we are not told whether the considerable portfolio turnover (once per year) is excessive or whether it is an intentional strategy designed to achieve the intended increase in wealth. If over many trades the strategy produces the intended wealth gain, we could potentially classify it as best execution. In this case, with no information other than "as long as the portfolio value is greater after trading costs," we would most likely conclude this does nor meet CFA Institute guidelines for best execution.
(Study Session 16, LOS 45-n)



Sue Gano and Tony Cismesia are performance analysts for the Barth Group. Barth provides consulting and compliance verification for investment firms wishing to adhere to the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS ®). The firm also provides global performance evaluation and attribution services for portfolio managers. Barth recommends the use of GIPS to its clients due to its prominence as the standard for investment performance presentation.
One of the Barth Group's clients, Nigel Investment Advisors, has a composite that specializes in exploiting the results of academic research. This Contrarian composite goes long "loser" stocks and short "winner" stocks. The "loser' stocks are those that have experienced severe price declines over the past three years, while the "winner" stocks are those that have had a tremendous surge in price over the past three years. The Contrarian composite has a mixed record of success and is rather small. It contains only four portfolios. Gano and Cismesia debate the requirements for the Contrarian composite under the Global Investment Performance Standards.
The Global Equity Growth composite of Nigel Investment Advisors invests in growth stocks internationally, and is tilted when appropriate to small cap stocks. One of Nigel's clients in the Global Equity Growth composite is Cypress University. The university has recently decided that it would like to implement ethical investing criteria in its endowment holdings. Specifically, Cypress does not want to hold the stocks from any countries that are deemed as human rights violators. Cypress has notified Nigel of the change, but Nigel does not hold any stocks in these countries. Gano is concerned that this restriction may limit investment manager freedom going forward. Gano and Cismesia are discussing the valuation and return calculation principles for both portfolios and composites, which they believe have changed over time. In order to standardize the manner in which investment firms calculate and present performance to clients, Gano states that GIPS require the following: Statement 1: The valuation of portfolios must be based on market values and not book values or cost. Portfolio valuations must be quarterly for all periods prior to January 1, 2001. Monthly portfolio valuations and returns are required for periods between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2010.
Statement 2: Composites are groups of portfolios that represent a specific investment strategy or objective. A definition of them must be made available upon request. Because composites are based on portfolio valuation, the monthly requirement for return calculation also applies to composites for periods between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2010.
The manager of the Global Equity Growth composite has a benchmark that is fully hedged against currency risk. Because the manager is confident in his forecasting of currency values, the manager does not hedge to the extent that the benchmark does. In addition to the Global Equity Growth composite, Nigel Investment Advisors has a second investment manager that specializes in global equity. The funds under her management constitute the Emerging Markets Equity composite. The benchmark for the Emerging Markets Equity composite is not hedged against currency risk. The manager of the Emerging Markets Equity composite does not hedge due to the difficulty in finding currency hedges for thinly traded emerging market currencies. The manager focuses on security selection in these markets and does not try to time the country markets differently from the benchmark.
The manager of the Emerging Markets Equity composite would like to add frontier markets such as Bulgaria, Kenya, Oman, and Vietnam to their composite, with a 20% weight- The manager is attracted to frontier markets because, compared to emerging markets, frontier markets have much higher expected returns and lower correlations. Frontier markets, however, also have lower liquidity and higher risk. As a result, the manager proposes that the benchmark be changed from one reflecting only emerging markets to one that reflects both emerging and frontier markets. The date of the change and the reason for the change will be provided in the footnotes to the performance presentation. The manager reasons that by doing so, the potential investor can accurately assess the relative performance of the composite over time.
Cismesia would like to explore the performance of the Emerging Markets Equity composite over the past two years. To do so, he determines the excess return each period and then compounds the excess return over the two years to arrive at a total two-year excess return. For the attribution analysis, he calculates the security selection effect, the market allocation effect, and the currency allocation effect each year. He then adds all the yearly security selection effects together to arrive at the total security selection effect. He repeats this process for the market allocation effect and the currency allocation effect.

What are the GIPS requirements for the Contrarian composite of Nigel Investment Advisors?

  1. The composite can be formed and the composite must report all performance statistics.
  2. The composite can be formed, however the number of portfolios and dispersion does not have to be reported.
  3. The composite cannot be formed because it has less than six portfolios in it, so there are no presentation requirements.

Answer(s): B

Explanation:

Under GIPS, all fee-paying, discretionary portfolios must be included in at least one composite. There is no minimum number of portfolios or minimum asset level for composite formation, so the Contrarian composite can be formed. However, the number of portfolios and dispersion does not have to be reported because there are less than six portfolios in the composite. (Study Session 18, LOS 49.b, I)



Sue Gano and Tony Cismesia are performance analysts for the Barth Group. Barth provides consulting and compliance verification for investment firms wishing to adhere to the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS ®). The firm also provides global performance evaluation and attribution services for portfolio managers. Barth recommends the use of GIPS to its clients due to its prominence as the standard for investment performance presentation.
One of the Barth Group's clients, Nigel Investment Advisors, has a composite that specializes in exploiting the results of academic research. This Contrarian composite goes long "loser" stocks and short "winner" stocks. The "loser' stocks are those that have experienced severe price declines over the past three years, while the "winner" stocks are those that have had a tremendous surge in price over the past three years. The Contrarian composite has a mixed record of success and is rather small. It contains only four portfolios. Gano and Cismesia debate the requirements for the Contrarian composite under the Global Investment Performance Standards.
The Global Equity Growth composite of Nigel Investment Advisors invests in growth stocks internationally, and is tilted when appropriate to small cap stocks. One of Nigel's clients in the Global Equity Growth composite is Cypress University. The university has recently decided that it would like to implement ethical investing criteria in its endowment holdings. Specifically, Cypress does not want to hold the stocks from any countries that are deemed as human rights violators. Cypress has notified Nigel of the change, but Nigel does not hold any stocks in these countries. Gano is concerned that this restriction may limit investment manager freedom going forward. Gano and Cismesia are discussing the valuation and return calculation principles for both portfolios and composites, which they believe have changed over time. In order to standardize the manner in which investment firms calculate and present performance to clients, Gano states that GIPS require the following: Statement 1: The valuation of portfolios must be based on market values and not book values or cost. Portfolio valuations must be quarterly for all periods prior to January 1, 2001. Monthly portfolio valuations and returns are required for periods between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2010.
Statement 2: Composites are groups of portfolios that represent a specific investment strategy or objective. A definition of them must be made available upon request. Because composites are based on portfolio valuation, the monthly requirement for return calculation also applies to composites for periods between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2010.
The manager of the Global Equity Growth composite has a benchmark that is fully hedged against currency risk. Because the manager is confident in his forecasting of currency values, the manager does not hedge to the extent that the benchmark does. In addition to the Global Equity Growth composite, Nigel Investment Advisors has a second investment manager that specializes in global equity. The funds under her management constitute the Emerging Markets Equity composite. The benchmark for the Emerging Markets Equity composite is not hedged against currency risk. The manager of the Emerging Markets Equity composite does not hedge due to the difficulty in finding currency hedges for thinly traded emerging market currencies. The manager focuses on security selection in these markets and does not try to time the country markets differently from the benchmark.
The manager of the Emerging Markets Equity composite would like to add frontier markets such as Bulgaria, Kenya, Oman, and Vietnam to their composite, with a 20% weight- The manager is attracted to frontier markets because, compared to emerging markets, frontier markets have much higher expected returns and lower correlations. Frontier markets, however, also have lower liquidity and higher risk. As a result, the manager proposes that the benchmark be changed from one reflecting only emerging markets to one that reflects both emerging and frontier markets. The date of the change and the reason for the change will be provided in the footnotes to the performance presentation. The manager reasons that by doing so, the potential investor can accurately assess the relative performance of the composite over time.
Cismesia would like to explore the performance of the Emerging Markets Equity composite over the past two years. To do so, he determines the excess return each period and then compounds the excess return over the two years to arrive at a total two-year excess return. For the attribution analysis, he calculates the security selection effect, the market allocation effect, and the currency allocation effect each year. He then adds all the yearly security selection effects together to arrive at the total security selection effect. He repeats this process for the market allocation effect and the currency allocation effect.
What are the GIPS requirements for the Cypress University portfolio in the Global Equity Growth composite of Nigel Investment Advisors?

  1. The historical and future record of performance of the Cypress University portfolio should be kept in the Global Equity Growth composite.
  2. Because the Cypress University portfolio is nondiscretionary, its future record of performance must be removed from the Global Equity Growth composite.
  3. Because the Cypress University portfolio is nondiscretionary, its historical and future record of performance must be removed from the Global Equity Growth composite.

Answer(s): A

Explanation:

The Cypress University portfolio is still a discretionary portfolio (i.e., the ethical investing restriction does not limit the ability of the manager to implement the investment strategy because Nigel does not hold any stocks in the countries of concern). Therefore, the historical and future record of performance for the Cypress University portfolio should be kept in the Global Equity Growth composite.
If at some point the ethical investing concern does limit the ability of the manager to implement the investment strategy, it would be deemed nondiscretionary and its future record of performance would not be included in the Global Equity Growth composite. Its historical record of performance would not be removed. (Study Session 18, LOS 49.g)



Sue Gano and Tony Cismesia are performance analysts for the Barth Group. Barth provides consulting and compliance verification for investment firms wishing to adhere to the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS ®). The firm also provides global performance evaluation and attribution services for portfolio managers. Barth recommends the use of GIPS to its clients due to its prominence as the standard for investment performance presentation.
One of the Barth Group's clients, Nigel Investment Advisors, has a composite that specializes in exploiting the results of academic research. This Contrarian composite goes long "loser" stocks and short "winner" stocks.

The "loser' stocks are those that have experienced severe price declines over the past three years, while the "winner" stocks are those that have had a tremendous surge in price over the past three years. The Contrarian composite has a mixed record of success and is rather small. It contains only four portfolios. Gano and Cismesia debate the requirements for the Contrarian composite under the Global Investment Performance Standards.
The Global Equity Growth composite of Nigel Investment Advisors invests in growth stocks internationally, and is tilted when appropriate to small cap stocks. One of Nigel's clients in the Global Equity Growth composite is Cypress University. The university has recently decided that it would like to implement ethical investing criteria in its endowment holdings. Specifically, Cypress does not want to hold the stocks from any countries that are deemed as human rights violators. Cypress has notified Nigel of the change, but Nigel does not hold any stocks in these countries. Gano is concerned that this restriction may limit investment manager freedom going forward. Gano and Cismesia are discussing the valuation and return calculation principles for both portfolios and composites, which they believe have changed over time. In order to standardize the manner in which investment firms calculate and present performance to clients, Gano states that GIPS require the following: Statement 1: The valuation of portfolios must be based on market values and not book values or cost. Portfolio valuations must be quarterly for all periods prior to January 1, 2001. Monthly portfolio valuations and returns are required for periods between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2010.
Statement 2: Composites are groups of portfolios that represent a specific investment strategy or objective. A definition of them must be made available upon request. Because composites are based on portfolio valuation, the monthly requirement for return calculation also applies to composites for periods between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2010.
The manager of the Global Equity Growth composite has a benchmark that is fully hedged against currency risk. Because the manager is confident in his forecasting of currency values, the manager does not hedge to the extent that the benchmark does. In addition to the Global Equity Growth composite, Nigel Investment Advisors has a second investment manager that specializes in global equity. The funds under her management constitute the Emerging Markets Equity composite. The benchmark for the Emerging Markets Equity composite is not hedged against currency risk. The manager of the Emerging Markets Equity composite does not hedge due to the difficulty in finding currency hedges for thinly traded emerging market currencies. The manager focuses on security selection in these markets and does not try to time the country markets differently from the benchmark.
The manager of the Emerging Markets Equity composite would like to add frontier markets such as Bulgaria, Kenya, Oman, and Vietnam to their composite, with a 20% weight- The manager is attracted to frontier markets because, compared to emerging markets, frontier markets have much higher expected returns and lower correlations. Frontier markets, however, also have lower liquidity and higher risk. As a result, the manager proposes that the benchmark be changed from one reflecting only emerging markets to one that reflects both emerging and frontier markets. The date of the change and the reason for the change will be provided in the footnotes to the performance presentation. The manager reasons that by doing so, the potential investor can accurately assess the relative performance of the composite over time.
Cismesia would like to explore the performance of the Emerging Markets Equity composite over the past two years. To do so, he determines the excess return each period and then compounds the excess return over the two years to arrive at a total two-year excess return. For the attribution analysis, he calculates the security selection effect, the market allocation effect, and the currency allocation effect each year. He then adds all the yearly security selection effects together to arrive at the total security selection effect. He repeats this process for the market allocation effect and the currency allocation effect.
Regarding the statements made by Gano on the GIPS requirements for portfolios and composites, are both statements correct?

  1. Yes.
  2. No, only statement 1 is correct.
  3. No, both statements are incorrect.

Answer(s): B

Explanation:

Statement I: The GIPS requirements that Gano states here are correct. Additionally, beginning January 1, 2010, portfolios must be valued at calendar month end and on the dates that any large external cash flows are received.
Statement 2: Gano is incorrect. It is true that composites are groups of portfolios that represent a specific investment strategy or objective and that a definition of them must be made available upon request. However, for periods prior to January I, 2010, the requirement for composite return calculation is quarterly. Beginning in January 1, 2010, monthly return calculations for composites are required. (Study Session 18, LOS 49.d,f)






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