Specialist track, course code SI
Systematic Investing
Systematic trading over months and years: factors, trend following and the evidence behind them.
Systematic trading over long horizons, often called systematic investing, applies the discipline of algorithmic trading to slow signals. Positions last months, turnover is low and the edge comes from persistent return premia rather than speed. The research question is whether a premium is real, whether it will persist, and what it costs to harvest.
What does the systematic investing track cover?
Factor Investing and the Fama-French Models covers value, momentum, quality and low volatility, how factor portfolios are built, and the three- and five-factor models, their estimation and the debate over which factors survive. Trend Following Strategies, Carry and Systematic Futures covers time-series momentum across futures markets, currency, bond and commodity carry and the crashes that come with it, and the rolls, margin and contract choice of futures trading.
Where does this track lead?
To the Certificate in Systematic Investing, which adds Modern Portfolio Theory and the CAPM, portfolio optimization and options and ends in a capstone multi-asset systematic portfolio.
Practitioner courses in this track
Lab-based courses. You build, test and cost real strategies and systems on market data.
- Factor Investing and the Fama-French Models How equity factors are defined, built and tested: value, momentum, size, quality and low volatility, the construction of long-short factor portfolios, combining factors, and the multiple-testing problem that hides behind hundreds of published factors. It also teaches the Fama-French factor models.
- Trend Following Strategies, Carry and Systematic Futures How systematic trend followers trade: time-series momentum, moving average and breakout signals, volatility-targeted sizing, diversified futures portfolios, and what a century of evidence says about returns and drawdowns. It also teaches systematic futures trading: rolls, margin and contract choice and the carry trade in currencies and commodities.
Credentials that use this track
- Certificate in Systematic InvestingSeven courses and a capstone on rule-based investing over months and years: asset pricing, trend, factors, carry, allocation and the portfolio construction and risk control that hold them together.
- Certificate in Quantitative Portfolio ManagementSeven courses and a capstone on building portfolios with numbers: mean-variance and its failures, robust optimization, Black-Litterman views, factors, asset allocation, bonds, attribution and risk.
- Professional Diploma in Algorithmic TradingThe top credential on the practitioner path. Twenty-one courses and an 80-hour capstone covering everything between the mathematics and a book you could defend to a risk committee.
Questions applicants ask
What is systematic investing?
Investing by fixed, tested rules rather than case-by-case judgment. Factor portfolios and trend-following funds are the best-known examples; both hold positions for months and rebalance on a schedule.
Is factor investing the same as smart beta?
Smart beta is the product name for long-only factor portfolios sold as index funds. The courses cover the underlying factor research, which also includes long-short and multi-factor designs.