FINC19012 Investment Analysis and Risk Management

THIS ASSESSMENT COUNTS AS 50% OF YOUR FINAL GRADE.

You will be required to create a professional Statement of Advice (SOA) for client/s, based on information provided about them in a completed and signed Fact Find document and Risk Profile document. This is an individual assessment – group submissions are not acceptable. Please see the detailed rubric towards the end of this document explaining how we grade you. Follow the marking guidelines in the rubrics carefully.

Content of this document

In this document, we provide the following information:

1. Instructions to complete the assessment.
2. Your tasks in this
3. Decide whether to use XPlan (or not).
4. Instructions to submit the assessment.
5. The assessment marking criteria and

1.   Instructions to complete the assessment:

Please read everything on the Moodle site and in this Instructions document together with the Fact Find/Risk Profile and Statement of Advice documents carefully. These three documents are going to test your attention to detail, a critical skill for a financial adviser.

When working through the case study, use the Moodle (prescribed and supplementary) resources, the library, the internet, internet calculators and apps, Microsoft-Excel, and if you wish to do so, the XPlan financial planning software CQU makes available.

2.   Your tasks in the assessment:

• The first step is to download the three documents from
• Read the Fact Find document to get to know your clients’ goals, objectives, needs and financial
• Next read the Risk Profile document of the clients, which you use to complete the asset allocation parts of the investment
• Then, before starting to complete the Statement of Advice template, quickly read it so that you familiarise yourself with the requirements. You will then go ahead to modify this document and submit it as your Follow the instructions contained within the SOA template. Complete the template from beginning to end. The instructions are in the form of statements, questions, tables and figures. The answers to the questions will help you decide on your recommendations for your clients and are your opportunity to demonstrate your ability to analyse your clients’ needs and objectives and design an investment plan that aligns with their specific goals and requirements. This should include researching products that can support the implementation of those strategies.

Note: Goals are SMART [specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound]. For example, when stating goals, be specific like this: Shane wishes to invest in an education fund starting with $1,000 per month[measurable] for five years [period] [specific] [achievable] [relevant].  Please note cashflow projections must be at least 5 years.

Please edit the Statement of Advice template document where it is indicated to do so. Make sure you remove any yellow highlighted writing and the instructions or complete the details between <brackets>. The grader is looking for an SOA that is of a professional standard and is suitable for presentation to a client. This means your spelling and grammar must be correct and that you have written your recommendations so the client can understand them.

Note: Do not use the SOA template within XPLAN or any other SOA template.

Extra notes

• This assessment is mainly focussing on strategic recommendations in personal investment analysis and risk management outside the superannuation
• While you are not needed to supply advice in the following areas, you will need to make sure this is noted in the ‘Scope of Advice’ section of your SOA by including, but not limited to:
  • Cashflow management/ Budgeting
  • Debt management
  • Superannuation and insurance inside superannuation
  • Insurance Planning
  • Estate planning
• You are required to source additional information from other firms in the finance sector, such as, but not limited to, ASIC, APRA, ATO, Money Smart and For instance, this includes your financial product and

services choice and/or determining the fees to meet the case study's client needs.

• Use the assessment resources posted within the Assessments and Exams Folder on Moodle. They are important to ensure you produce a professional
• Document all your workings in the Appendix of the SOA. Label each Appendix We need to see written evidence of the research and analysis of your client, prior to making the recommendations.
• List any assumptions you made to complete your SOA in the Appendix of the If you make any assumptions, please ensure:
  • You only include missing critical background information necessary to make your personal investment recommendations,
  • You only include information relating to fees for product recommendations,
  • You do not conflict with the information provided in the case study,
  • Rate of return assumptions for the cash flow projections are net of inflation to show in today’s dollars (i.e., real rate of interest assumptions for the cashflow projections), and
  • Include any  assumptions  you  make  to  calculate  the  10-year cashflow projection

3.   Decide whether to use XPlan (or not)

Using XPlan for your assessment is optional, yet highly recommended. You need to decide whether you will be using XPlan or not to complete your assessment. As using XPlan is optional, and you will not earn any additional grades for using XPlan. If you intend to use XPlan, then please lodge “Your Expression of Interest” by email by the end of week four (4) so that I can email you your personal login details. If you are having any technical problems with the software, please also let me know as soon as possible.

There are tutorial tools within XPlan and posted on Moodle to help you learn how to navigate and use this software if you have not used XPlan before. Please use them. There are many resources placed in the Assessment section of Moodle to help you complete the assessment. Please use them.

If you do use XPlan, please make sure you check the results from the calculations that the XPlan modelling tool generates, because the output depends on the quality of the inputs. Be aware of "garbage in, garbage out".

4.   Instructions to submit the assessment

Once you have completed a professional SOA, submit it as a single file in Microsoft Word format in Moodle.

Only submit the Assessment once it is completed. Your lecturer cannot unsubmit any incorrect submissions. Submissions outside Moodle will be

unacceptable, therefore, any errors in submissions will affect your grades. After submitting, you cannot make any changes to your document.

6. Assessment marking criteria and rubrics

Marks are awarded for completing the SOA using the Microsoft Word template provided, creating strategies and recommendations to meet the clients’ goals, as well as cashflow projections and your investment planning approach.

The rubric below describes how the marks are allocated for each question.

The assessment is graded out of a 100 and will be scaled down to 50% of the total Assessment Grade by dividing the grade out of 100 by 2. Penalty for late submission is 5% per calendar day including Saturday and Sunday.

Please apply for extensions prior to the due date if medical or employment issues may prevent on time submissions via Moodle. Supply either a medical certificate or an email letter from your employer or from your unit coordinator to serve as supporting documents required by you to request an extension.