A Market-Class guide to Investment Management

By John Bonner and Edward Ivanovic and Marcus Rees

Investing can seem simple, but there are an infinite number of ways to get to your goals and an infinite number of ways to fail.

To sharpen your investment skills, this book guides you through the key aspects of the fund management profession, working from a macro-industry overview to the micro details of security-valuation techniques, combining the benefits of academic experience with decades of industry experience.

This is something also found in the complementary online Market-Class investment simulator, where you can manage a $100m fund in a dynamic market and your decisions and those of fellow fund managers ‘make the market’.

A smart investor doesn’t rely on luck or guts, but on learning as much as possible to make the best decisions. Portfolio Management and Market-Class, with their uniquely rich insight into the real-life workflow of portfolio management, are a vital component in any investor’s education.

John is the chief executive officer of JME Education (UK) Limited and the co-founder of the award-winning investment management simulator Market-Class (www.market-class.com).

John has an extensive background in developing products and services for the asset management and investment banking markets.

John’s career includes co-founding a company that designed analysis and valuation tools for investment management and corporate finance professionals - a collaborative venture funded by Reuters and Goldman Sachs. John also worked for four years in corporate finance in the US, with responsibilities focused on company valuations, mergers and acquisitions, public equity offerings and private equity placements. He also managed Thomson Reuters' data operations centre in Europe, the operational hub for the management and support of all financial data in the region, as well as managing the portfolio of Finance & Risk, Legal and IP & Science content assets for Thomson Reuters.

John holds a patent for private company valuations and a patent pending for predictive initial public offering (IPO) analytics.

John completed his MBA at the University of Chicago and graduated cum laude (with honours) from the University of Minnesota with degrees in Economics, Finance and Actuarial Science.

Edward is the chief technology officer of JME Education (UK) Limited and co-founder of the award-winning investment management simulator Market-Class (www.market-class.com).

Edward has over 20 years’ experience in information technology and has worked primarily in the financial services industry. His experience spans co-founding start-up companies, designing algorithmic trading systems for Wall Street global investment banks, exchange simulators for the New York Stock Exchange, middle- and back-office systems for broker-dealers, trade compliance systems, and more.

Edward obtained a master’s degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering from Melbourne University, Australia, with research in Natural Language Processing.

Marcus is the chief operating officer of JME Education (UK) Limited and the co-founder of the award-winning investment management simulator Market-Class (www.market-class.com).

Marcus has 20 years' experience in the financial data services sector. His career has incorporated all aspects of data management: the sourcing and maintenance of real-time, contributed and proprietary financial data; data quality best practice process and improvement, including Six Sigma; customer experience design and continuous service improvement to meet the needs of the investment management community. He has extensive experience in internal communications and marketing communication roles. Marcus has also developed e-learning modules and produced peer-to-peer learning materials.

Marcus' role with JME Education (UK) Limited covers all aspects of sales, marketing and support, where he has grown the business globally. Market-Class achieved industry recognition in the 'Best Learning Game, Simulation or Virtual Environment' category at the 2010 E-Learning Awards.

Marcus graduated with honours from Oxford Brookes University with a BA in Economics and Politics, and he also holds a masters degree in Professional Management and Development from the University of Exeter.