Investment Consulting: currently 152 jobs.The latest job was posted on 16 Jan 19.

Investment Consulting

Investment consulting is a relatively specialist niche in finance. It involves provide investment advice to big institutions, particularly pension funds, about the investments they hold and perhaps the investments they should be holding. Roles in investment consulting inevitably require keeping up to date with changes in the market for investment generally, identifying and anticipating medium and long term trends.  Investment consulting requires building and maintaining  long standing relationships with the clients, and the clients expect professionalism and insightful analysis. Investment consultants assist their clients in making the decision on what to trade, and when to trade it, and also produce reports relating to the funds past performance and suggesting ways to boost future performance. Investment consultants can specialize in one of two areas: asset allocation, and fund selection.

Asset Allocation

Asset allocation is making recommendations about the types of assets that the client should hold. For example, at a simple level it is recommending the proportion of a pension fund client’s assets that should be equities versus the proportion that should be bonds. The recommendation will be drawn from the investment consultant’s knowledge about the current market, and based upon careful analysis of past trends and, crucially, the prediction of future trends. The skills expected of the investment consultant will be a combination of statistical and actuarial skills with a strong awareness of macroeconomics.

Fund Selection

As the name suggests, fund selection involves assisting the client pension fund select the appropriate individual funds in which to put its assets. Obviously the funds selected will need to be in line with the asset allocation, but within this decisions will have to be made as to which equity funds and bond funds are likely to perform best.  Roles in fund selection will involve maintaining a database of funds, and assessing which of these should be recommended to the clients. The funds will range from the straightforward mutual type funds through to hedge funds using more sophisticated investment strategies. The investment consultants working in this area will need a good grasp of funds plus an interest in facts, figures, research, and math.