Portfolio management is the process of assembling and overseeing a selection of investments in stocks, bonds, and other securities that meet a particular investor’s desired balance of risk and expected return. Efficient portfolio construction and management are critically important for building wealth over the long term, enabling investors to earn more over time than just putting money in an interest-bearing savings account while avoiding the risk of attempting to pick individual stocks and “beat the market.”

Most strategies for portfolio optimization are based in modern portfolio theory, which is founded on the insight that evaluations of risk and return should be made about an entire collection of assets, not just individual assets. Thus, portfolio optimization is pursued by combining assets with different risk profiles that balance each other out in aggregate and minimize the overall portfolio risk for a given expected return. Statistical analyses of variance in price movements and correlations between assets are relied upon to build this efficient diversified portfolio.

Other portfolio theories have emerged to remedy perceived flaws in modern portfolio theory, giving portfolio managers additional tools. For example, post-modern portfolio theory seeks to more aggressively minimize downside risks, claiming that modern portfolio theory fails to adequately distinguish between regular small losses and rarer but more dangerous catastrophic declines in the market. Behavioral finance has also critiqued conventional portfolio management strategies for failing to account for the role of cognitive biases of investors and the market at large.

Portfolio management is an art as well as a science, and professionals in this field must be skilled at analyzing a basket of different securities as well as working with investors to determine their desired combination of risk and return. Because of the enormous value that can be generated by an efficient diversified portfolio over time, this expertise is always in high demand - and is highly compensated. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, financial managers earned a median annual salary of $129,890 in 2019, and these jobs are expected to grow much faster than average.

Absolutely. Coursera offers an incredibly wide range of opportunities to learn about business and finance, including individual courses as well as Specializations spanning multiple courses. Coursera also gives you the chance to learn about portfolio management from top-ranked universities from around the world, including Yale University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Rice University, University of Geneva, and the Indian School of Business. And, since you can learn on Coursera for a significantly lower tuition than on-campus students, your valuable education in portfolio management is sure to be a smart investment.