Building & Managing a Multi-Asset Portfolio
Most people never buy a single stock — they own funds inside a 401(k) and hope for the best. This course turns that hope into a process. You will learn what mutual funds, ETFs, index funds, and UITs actually are, how to read them, and the language professionals use to judge them: alpha, beta, benchmarks, and style drift. Then you will assemble a balanced multi-asset-class portfolio, write an Investment Policy Statement to govern it, optimize it against the risk-return matrix using the Efficient Frontier, stress-test it against real scenarios, and manage it on a rebalancing cadence — all framed so you can apply it to your own 401(k). Educational only; nothing here is individualized investment advice or a recommendation of any security or fund.
The Building Blocks
- Funds, ETFs, Index Funds, and UITsFree previewThe four pooled products you will actually own: what each is, how it trades, and how fees, taxes, and liquidity differ.8 min
- Active, Passive, and What an Index Really IsWhat a market index actually measures, the difference between active and passive strategies, and why cost compounds against active managers.7 min
- Reading a Fund or ETF Fact SheetHow to decode a fact sheet: mandate, top holdings, expense ratio, turnover, and the benchmark it is measured against.8 min
The Language of Risk & Return
- Alpha, Beta, and BenchmarksBeta as sensitivity to the market, alpha as excess return versus a fair benchmark, and why the benchmark choice changes both.8 min
- Style Boxes and Style DriftHow style boxes classify funds, why mandate discipline matters, and how to detect style drift before it distorts your allocation.7 min
- The Risk-Return VocabularyVolatility, the Sharpe ratio, correlation, and maximum drawdown — the shared language for describing the risk-return matrix.8 min
Designing the Portfolio
- Writing an Investment Policy StatementThe IPS as your governing document: objectives, constraints, time horizon, risk tolerance, and the rebalancing rules you commit to in advance.9 min
- Asset Classes and Why Allocation DominatesEquities, fixed income, real assets, and cash — the roles each plays, and why the allocation decision drives most of a portfolio’s outcome.8 min
- Diversification Across Asset ClassesHow combining low-correlation building blocks shapes portfolio risk, and why true diversification is about behavior, not the number of holdings.7 min
Optimize, Stress, and Manage
- Reading the Efficient FrontierMean-variance optimization made visual: the risk-return matrix, the efficient frontier, the minimum-variance point, and where your portfolio sits relative to them.9 min
- Stress-Testing Your PlanScenario and stress testing: estimating how a balanced portfolio behaves in drawdowns and rate shocks, and using the results to right-size risk.8 min
- Capstone: Managing Your Own 401(k)Turn everything into a concrete 401(k) plan: choose an allocation from the menu, document it in an IPS, optimize it, stress-test it, and set a rebalancing cadence.9 min
Certification
Final Assessment
Unlock the course to take the graded assessment.