GA31203 Mutual Fund Management

Course Lecturer: Iftekhar Amin Chowdhury

Semester II (Session 2017/2018)

LABUAN FACULTY OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCE

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SABAH – LABUAN INTERNATIONAL CAMPUS

SEMESTER II (SESSION 2017/2018)

GA31203: MUTUAL FUND MANAGEMENT

1.0 COURSE SYNOPSIS

Over the past decades, mutual funds have grown intensely in popularity and have experienced a considerable
growth rate. Mutual funds are popular because they make it easy for small investors to invest their money in a
diversified pool of securities. As the mutual fund industry has evolved over the years, there have arisen many
questions about the nature of operations and characteristics of these funds.

This course will provide in-depth coverage of the mutual fund industry and its operations in an interactive
format. It is intended to familiarize you with the basic concepts related to mutual funds. The course will first
provide the fundamentals, explaining what mutual funds are and how they work. Along with that, this course
will provide an overall understanding of how equity and bond fund portfolios are managed. Various factors
surrounding the performance of mutual funds are then highlighted along with a brief of various standardized
performance systems. Finally, the course will depict the recent trends in the mutual fund's industry.

2.0 COURSE OBJECTIVES

The course is aimed at:

 Providing students with some institutional background on financial securities and their markets.
 Describe the basic features of mutual funds, and note what they have offered as investment vehicles.
 Identify the sources of return and compute the rate of return earned on a mutual fund investment.

3.0 LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

 Differentiate the various types of mutual fund products and their structure and constituents
 Understand the concepts of mutual funds and trends in mutual fund industry
 Discuss the types of funds available and the variety of investment objectives these funds seek to fulfill.

4.0 INSTRUCTIONAL METHODS

To facilitate a better understanding of the course materials, the following learning modes are adopted:

 Lectures, small group discussions, and mini case studies;

 Directed reading and individual research using the main text and supplementary materials; and
 Individual and group work.

5.0 REFERENCES

Main Text:
Robert Pozen, & Theresa Hamacher (2015). The Fund Industry: How Your Money is Managed, 2ND Edition,
New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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 GA31203 Mutual Fund Management
Course Lecturer: Iftekhar Amin Chowdhury
Semester II (Session 2017/2018)

Supplementary Texts:

Ray Russell (2007). An Introduction to Mutual Funds Worldwide (1st ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Ray Russell (2006). An Introduction to Fund Management (3rd ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Alvin D. Hall (2003). Getting Started in Mutual Funds (2nd ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

6.0 EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR

Behaviors that are encouraged in this class include:

 Attending class punctually and regularly;

 Participating in class/group discussions/activities with enthusiasm;
 Treating all in the class with respect;
 Active listening;
 Having cell phone switched off during class;
 Reading the relevant chapters of the textbook, materials, and information; and
 Submitting assignments on time.

7.0 COURSE EVALUATION

Performance in this course will be evaluated as follows:

Final Exam : 40 %
Quiz (TWO) : 20 %
Article Review (Group) : 10%
Final Assignment (Group) : 20 %
Presentation : 10%

TOTAL : 100 %

Descriptions:

Final Exam (40%)

A written assessment consisting of FOUR essay questions (Each question carries 25 marks) that test students’
knowledge of the key topics in the course.

Quiz (20%)
There will be TWO (2) quizzes based on the class work and current international fund industry. Before one week
of the quiz, it will be announced in the class and students need to sit for the quiz through a Smart2 portal in
online. TEN (10) marks will be allocated for each quiz.

Article Review (10%)

Students need to find one article relevant to fund industry from an indexed journal (Scopus and ISI) and review
the article critically to find out the weaknesses and strengths of the information. The lecturer will discuss the
procedure to do so in the classroom.

Assignment (20%)
You are expected to find your group members for assignment. In one group, there will be maximum FIVE
members. More than determine amount of the group members should have the approval from the lecturer, or
your mark will be deducted.

Presentation (10%)

Each group needs to develop one video presentation involving all the group members and upload to Youtube.
The lecturer in class will provide the detail instructions. The uploaded video will be marked based on ten marks,
and each of the group member presentation skill will be judged individually.

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 GA31203 Mutual Fund Management
Course Lecturer: Iftekhar Amin Chowdhury
Semester II (Session 2017/2018)

8.0 SYNOPSIS OF TOPICS

The following schedule provides a general guideline of the topics we will discuss and the order in which we
will discuss them. On occasions, we may deviate from this schedule due to unavoidable circumstances.

We are expecting to go through the following chapters from the assigned text in this semester. Other than
that there are some extra materials we will discuss at our class for better understanding the course.

WEEK TOPICS

1 Introduction of the course and preliminary discussion

2 Chapter 1: Investing through mutual funds
3 Chapter 2: How mutual funds work
4 Chapter 4: Comparing mutual funds
5 Case Analysis Class
6 Chapter 5: Portfolio management of stock funds
7 Chapter 6: Portfolio management of bond funds
8 Chapter 7: Portfolio management of money market funds
9 Case Analysis Class
10 Chapter 8: Implementing portfolio decisions: Buying and selling investments
11 Chapter 10: Selling investment funds: Retail sales
12 Case Analysis Class
13 Group Presentation
14 Discussion on Final Exam

Note: It is COMPULSORY for students to do an online evaluation of the course in WEEK 10.

Class Time : Tuesday, 11:00 AM – 01:00 PM (DK1)

Consultation Hours : Tuesday, 03:00 pm – 05:00 pm / Wednesday, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Lecturer Detail: IFTEKHAR AMIN CHOWDHURY

Office Room No. 205 (Level 3), DKPK, UMSKAL
H/P No. +6013 801 1904
Phone (Off.). +6087 593 143
Email. iftekhar@ums.edu.my

Course Web Portal: http://smart2.ums.edu.my

“Learning comes first; Grade is its logical sequence”

WISH YOU THE BEST!!!

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