Introduction to Portfolio Analysis in Python

In the first chapter, you’ll learn how a portfolio is build up out of individual assets and corresponding weights. The chapter also covers how to calculate the main characteristics of a portfolio: returns and risk.

Chapter 2 goes deeper into how to measure returns and risk accurately. The two most important measures of return, annualized returns, and risk-adjusted returns, are covered in the first part of the chapter. In the second part, you’ll learn how to look at risk from different perspectives. This part focuses on skewness and kurtosis of a distribution, as well as downside risk.

In chapter 3, you’ll learn about investment factors and how they play a role in driving risk and return. You’ll learn about the Fama French factor model, and use that to break down portfolio returns into explainable, common factors. This chapter also covers how to use Pyfolio, a public portfolio analysis tool.

In this last chapter, you learn how to create optimal portfolio weights, using Markowitz’ portfolio optimization framework. You’ll learn how to find the optimal weights for the desired level of risk or return. Lastly, you’ll learn alternative ways to calculate expected risk and return, using the most recent data only.