Sumários
Lecture 2: Introduction to Alternative Investments II
10 Setembro 2025, 08:00 • Haoxu Wang
In today’s lecture, I introduced key foundational knowledge in alternative investments that will support students’ understanding of more advanced topics later in the course. The session began with the quantitative foundations, focusing on different methods of return computation, with particular emphasis on the internal rate of return (IRR), a commonly used measure in the context of alternative investments. Quantitative examples were used to illustrate the return computation formulas and to highlight the limitations of the IRR approach.
The lecture then covered the compensation schemes of limited partnerships, using numerical examples to illustrate how cash waterfalls are distributed under specific agreements. The session concluded with an overview of statistical measures commonly used in investments and their relevance to alternative investments.
Due to time constraints, the planned content on financial economics foundations, risk and performance measures for hedge fund strategies, and an overview of alpha, beta, and hypothesis testing was not covered. The next lecture will begin with the remaining Week 1 content before moving into the planned topic for Week 2.
Lecture 1: Key Course Infromation and Introduction to Alternative Investments I
8 Setembro 2025, 12:00 • Haoxu Wang
In today’s lecture, I started with key course information based on the course syllabus. After that, I provided an introduction to alternative investments. I first discussed what is an alternative investment and gave a brief introduction to each alternative investment category under the CAIA framework. I then discussed how to distinguish between traditional and alternative investments and the essential goal of alternative investing.
Next, I moved on to the topic of the environment of alternative investments, including participants, legal structures, and key features of fund structures. Finally, I discussed accessing alternative investments, covering the characteristics of different fund structures including 1) open-end/evergreen and 2) closed-end/drawdown/PE-style funds as well as the differences between hedge funds and private equity in terms of fees, the key concepts of co-investing, and the performance of co-investing.
Reflection:
- I may have covered too much content in one session, and the slides had too many words, which may distract students.
- Two students suggested that I need to speak louder.
- In future lectures, I need to focus on improving student engagement by incorporating more interactive elements that actively encourage participation.