Capital Markets & Investment Management

15.451 Proseminar in Capital Markets/Investment Management

One of three Action Learning courses offered by the MIT Sloan Finance Group, the Proseminar in Capital Markets/Investment Management is a one-semester course that offers students experience in the complex task of developing and communicating solutions to the challenging financial problems facing businesses today. Students work in teams to tackle issues posed by company sponsors and present findings to the company sponsor and their fellow classmates.

Projects span topics such as:

• Portfolio construction
• Risk management
• Hedge fund trading strategies
• Optimal rebalancing
• Tail risk hedging
• Currency hedging
• Performance measurement
• Machine learning from the perspective of traders, portfolio managers, and institutional asset owners

Most Recent Project Examples

Mitigating Sequence of Returns Risk (SORR)

Protecting a Portfolio of Risky Assets

Other Sample Proseminar in Capital Markets/Investment Management Projects:

• Determine a portfolio’s optimal rebalancing schedule.
• Review and classify methodologies for detecting crowded trades within equity, fixed income, and currency markets.
• Develop and test strategies for replicating hedge fund style returns.
• Design a portfolio construction technique which takes into account non-normal returns and realistic risk preferences.
• Determine a portfolio’s optimal exposure to illiquid assets.
• Analyze the cost of trading foreign exchange for a major New York-based asset management firm.
• Prepare an asset allocation analysis for a pension fund to account for the claims of corporate stakeholders.

The Proseminar in Capital Markets/Investment Management

The Proseminar in Capital Markets/Investment Management is a one-semester course that offers students experience in developing and communicating solutions to challenging financial problems facing businesses today. Students work in teams to tackle issues posed by company sponsors and present findings to the company sponsor and their fellow classmates.

Interested in Becoming a Sponsor?

 For more information about sponsoring a project for the Proseminar in Capital Markets/Investment Management, please contact Mark Kritzman. 

Who Can Sponsor a Project?

Companies or business entities with real, challenging problems in capital markets/investment management are eligible to sponsor a proseminar project. While we often refer to corporate sponsors as 'clients,' the reality is that sponsors are leaders in their field who are giving of their time and experience to engage students in this educational experience. Acting as a sponsor also helps to build a productive, long-term relationship between the company and MIT Sloan.

What is Involved in Being a Project Sponsor?

Before the proseminar class begins, corporate sponsors provide a written statement of their company’s problem and any materials they believe may be helpful in orienting the student team. After the teams have had a chance to familiarize themselves with the problem—but before the intensive work is performed—corporate sponsors conduct one telephone conference with the team or teams working on their problem to establish a clearer idea of the problem and address any questions the students may have. During the intensive work phase, teams may have additional questions, and the class instructor will coordinate how communication in this phase is managed based on guidance from the corporate sponsor. At the end of the project, corporate sponsors will attend a class session at which the student teams will present their solutions. A written copy of the presentation will be sent to the corporate sponsor in advance.

Read more about the proseminar in capital markets/investment management