Certified Fund Specialist^® | Curriculum

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students of this course will gain mutual fund and related knowledge plus an understanding of the uses of different investment vehicle in their financial advising practice.

1. Asset class descriptions, historical returns and risk
2. Mutual fund costs
3. Fund management and selection
4. Time value analysis and market indicators
5. REITs, ETFs, CEFs, UITs and structured notes
6. Risk measurements and minimization
7. Fund and personal tax issues
8. Modern portfolio theory

 

SUBJECT HIGHLIGHTS

CORE	ADVANCED	SPECIALTY
Mutual fund features and benefits	Assessing risk tolerance	Balancing client goals and concerns
Structure and regulation of investment companies	Time value of money	Fund management
Expenses, share classes and load vs. no-load	Risk factors, related statistics and their shortcomings	Market indicators and indexes
Performance metrics for risk and returns	Fund analysis and selection	Home prices vs. stock indicators
Asset classes and fund categories	Investment policy statements	Closed-end funds and UITs
Indexing vs. active management	Core-satellite strategies	Sector fund options and suitability
Mutual funds vs. CEFs, EANs, ETFs, ETNs and UITs	Monte Carlo simulation	Commodity, utility and other specialized funds
Basics of portfolio construction	Correlation coefficients and first-auto correlations	REITs and real estate funds
	Modern portfolio theory (MPT)	High-yield vs. junk bonds
	Post-MPT and its ramifications	Emerging markets vs. frontier funds
	Portfolio rebalancing strategies	Long-short (130/30) and hedge funds
	Income taxes and planning	Target retirement funds
	Retirement income and withdrawal strategies	Ratio shortcomings
	Foreign markets and currency hedging	Optimal and suboptimal portfolios

Subject highlights above are a partial list of topics covered. For a detailed course outline request a catalog here.