DBS evening class investment and capital markets

M

Marc

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If anyone is interested in increasing their knowledge of how global capital markets work, I am lecturing the DBS Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Investment and Capital Markets this year.

http://www.dbs.ie/docs/professional...-and-capital-markets8900CFC9B140.pdf?sfvrsn=2

This will be a very practical course taught specifically from an Irish perspective and drawing upon my own experience of managing client assets in Ireland for the last 5 years.

We will have open events on Tuesday, 7th January Wednesday, 15th January Tuesday, 21st January Tuesday, 28th January Tuesday, from 5.00 – 7.00pm in the main DBS building 13/14 Aungier Street, room 3.5 on the third floor.
 
Hi Marc

Very interesting.

What is the target audience? Is it for amateur investors? For aspiring fund managers? Or for investment advisors?
 
Thanks Brendan,

The original course is billed by DBS as follows:

"This course aims to develop an understanding of the world of capital markets, investing and trading. The course commences with an introduction and in-depth look into the world of the stock market. Building on this, investment strategies, portfolio building, terminology and portfolio management are covered in detail."

However, I intend to make the content as practical as possible so that it would be useful for both private investors and industry professionals.

The sad fact is that most people, unless they have taken an MBA, have probably never taken a course in capital market theory in their lives.

Yet with the move from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes alone, more and more people are being expected to make these kinds of decisions.

As author William Bernstein puts it "For the first time in history, a familiarity with the behavior of the financial markets has become a prerequisite for competent citizenship"
 
Marc

Will you be taking course attendees through capital market theory with your total commitment to that theory or will you be presenting a more balanced perspective i.e. acknowledging the huge challenges to those theories which the real world has thrown up?
 
Hi Monksfield,

Thanks for the question.

I think we need to distinguish between an entertaining debate on askaboutmoney and the real world of investing in Ireland.

Most of my posts on askaboutmoney attack the "conventional wisdom". Concepts so universally accepted that they rarely go challenged by the investing public.

However, exposing the inherent conflicts of interest in commission based advice is not Theory, and various restrictions on commission based advice have been introduced recently in the UK, Holland, Australia, Canada, Denmark..

Ideas like testing for fund manager skill or alpha are not theories these are practical tests that are used to frequently debunk unsubstantiated claims made by the Financial Services Industry.

If anything i'm an empiricist rather than a theorist. Show me the evidence for a claim!

In the real world I am first and foremost a Financial Planner and Fiduciary responsible for over €50M of client money.

In my own practice we sold over €1m of gains for our clients before the end of last year and switched from perfectly good index funds into a large basket of securities that ended up looking almost exactly like the index funds we had just sold. The theory of index investing is fine in theory or in the USA. But in practice we live in Ireland and so in order to save up to 9% in tax immediately (a €100,000 prospective tax saving) plus up to 12%pa gains taxes we pragmatically switched some of our clients investments.

Its these practical lessons of real life investing that I will bring to bear in the course.
 
With all due respects the year end tax planning is irrelevant to the question I posed. Ditto for conflicts/commission etc.

Are you going to explain that some of the core theory in which you believe is fundamentally undermined if not discredited(and why)?

As for evidence, it is surely beyond argument that investors prefer to buy securities and funds which have gone up and tend to shun those which have fallen (i.e. are not rational).
 
It is relevant because it demonstrates what [broken link removed] rather than what you seem to think I believe.


[broken link removed]

This article appeared in the Sunday Times on 13th November 2011



I have not said that investors are rational or that prices are always right. This is a classic mistake that many people make. An efficient market is really just one that is difficult to beat persistently. The evidence points overwhelmingly to this conclusion.

[broken link removed]

But just because I don't believe that i can reliably identify who is going to beat the market, doesn't mean that you have the monopoly on behavioural finance either.

Some books on my shelf:
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Basic Instincts by Peter Lunn
Predictably irrational by Dan Ariely
The Behaviour Gap by Carl Richards who I booked to come to Dublin last year
 
Great article Marc.

I still disagree with you - if equity markets can halve in value during a year they were either chronically overvalued at the high point or ridiculously undervalued at the nadir.

If the market was efficiently priced at both points "efficiency" is a pretty useless concept.
 
Is the original post an Advertisement for DBS and if so is "Askaboutmoney" the place for such activity?
 
HI Marc

I am actually looking at the mentioned course. Currently in the middle of a post-grad course - not a masters.
What level would you state this course goes to? It does give the impression of being quite a low level course - no NFQ level provided.

Previous qualifications would be a level 7 degree (pass rate achieved), HDip in Financial Services and now currently doing the post-grad in treasury.
Would I be wasting my money on this? Is there any possibility of gaining direct access to the advanced diploma?

Thanks
 
hi Roryb,

I am planning to teach this at a fairly high level simply because unless you take the CFA exams there are very few courses available which cover this subject matter in sufficient detail to be meaningful.

Secondly it's against my nature for people to pay for something and not get value for money.

So, think of this as a literature review of the theory of investing since the 1600s with the history of capital markets since 1926 an introduction to Behavioural Finance and a critical assessment of the financial services industry and you won't go far wrong.

The advanaced diploma would be more technical with more statistical analysis techniques etc
 
Hi Marc,

Went to DBS and they said to me that will not have the Advanced Dip in Invest. and Capital Markets...

I'm 3+ years exp. in Brazilian Markets, what do u recommend to me??
 
Monksfield said:
Great article Marc.

I still disagree with you - if equity markets can halve in value during a year they were either chronically overvalued at the high point or ridiculously undervalued at the nadir.

If the market was efficiently priced at both points "efficiency" is a pretty useless concept.
Click to expand...

I don't think that you, or Marc, understand what a theory is, or what role it may fulfil in understanding events.

An internally coherent theory can have great value in itself, without necessarily predicting real world events.

In the Efficient Market Theory shares are valued at the NPV of the expected future dividends. This is a wonderful insight into asset values, irrespective of wether or not it applies in all cases in the real world.

The Efficient Market Theory is a wonderful tool for understanding the market, that does not mean it can explain everything.

Just because met Eireann cannot reliably predict next weeks weather does not mean Meteorology is useless.
 
I thought there was to be no advertising on this website. Otherwise, I might have been tempted to showcase my own [broken link removed]that's been running since 2005.

I'm sure Marc will do a good job with the DBS course, he has the credentials to do so. I always like quoting the opening like in David Dreman's book 'Contrarian Investment Strategies':

'Few of us learn in a vacuum'.

Anyone interested in investing via stock markets for the long-haul should think about getting some basic training and reading. I read all the time, never stop, lot's of good common sense stuff to be picked up from experienced investors. Someone said to me once that for a couple of hundred Euros you can buy a dozen great investment books and avail of the lifetimes' experiences of these investors. So true!
 
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