KU News Release

Business faculty pen book about Applied Portfolio Management class

LAWRENCE — In their new book, University of Kansas School of Business faculty members Catherine Shenoy and Kent C. McCarthy explain the critical skills it takes to become a financial analyst and an active stock investor.

In “Applied Portfolio Management: How University of Kansas Students Generate Alpha to Beat the Street” (John Wiley and Sons, April 2008), Shenoy and McCarthy use lessons from the Portfolio Management program at the School of Business to teach fundamentals of investing. The APM students’ management of investments led to a track record that even the pros would envy.

“The students have earned an annual average return over 20 percent since 1994 when the Applied Portfolio Management program was founded, blowing away the NASDAQ’s average 9 percent over the same period,” said Shenoy, director of the program. “We wrote the book to show investors the process that the class goes through to research a stock. The publisher thought that if a group of students could generate exceptional returns, that was a story that should be told.”

In addition to drawing attention to success of APM students, 50 percent of royalties from sale of the book will be returned to KU.

Shenoy thinks her APM students have beaten the market by “getting close to the information,” or learning how to value and dissect the performance of public companies.

APM students at KU learn the process of portfolio management from McCarthy, a successful investor who launched the course while on sabbatical from Goldman Sachs.

McCarthy’s extensive experience informs the book’s chapters “Investing in China” and “Local Investing,” the latter of which focuses on companies in Kansas and Missouri such as Capitol-Federal Savings, Garmin Industries, Kansas City Southern, Tortoise Capital Advisors and Inergy Holdings.

The APM course at KU is unique, and the book teaches readers essential skills that business students learn to be successful portfolio managers. Students learn to dig behind public numbers, press releases and spin to figure out what’s really going on in companies and markets. Readers can follow the APM class and its investment portfolio online at www.business.ku.edu/apm.

The new book is available from the publisher online or by calling 1-800-225-5945. It will be available in local bookstores soon.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.