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Bootcamp 01 — Five-Day PM/FICC Foundations

Day 0 — Orientation (optional, for true beginners)

If you haven't taken a portfolio-theory or linear-algebra course before, start here. If w' Sigma w is already second nature and your pm package imports without error, skip straight to Day 1.

  1. confirm your environment works
  2. the PREDICT / MANUAL FIRST / HAND CALCULATION / ORAL CHECK learning cycle
  3. vectors, dot products, and the quadratic form w' Sigma w by hand

Notebook: - 00 Orientation

Also see reference/glossary.md — a one-line-per-term cheat sheet for vocabulary used throughout the curriculum.

Day 1 — Portfolio mathematics and risk

  1. portfolio process and vocabulary
  2. returns and compounding
  3. covariance/correlation
  4. diversification
  5. portfolio volatility
  6. marginal/component risk
  7. Sharpe and drawdown

Notebooks: - 01 Returns and Compounding - 02 Covariance and Diversification - 03 Risk Contribution - 13 Sharpe, Drawdown, Benchmark (Sharpe ratio, drawdown, benchmark vocabulary)

Day 2 — Portfolio theory and optimization

  1. opportunity set
  2. efficient frontier
  3. global minimum variance
  4. tangency / Sharpe
  5. mean–variance utility
  6. CVXPY
  7. constraints
  8. turnover/transaction-cost intuition
  9. optimizer instability

Notebooks: - 04 Efficient Frontier - 05 Constrained Optimization

Day 3 — Active management and risk models

  1. benchmark-relative thinking
  2. active weights
  3. tracking error
  4. information ratio
  5. alpha / IC / breadth
  6. factor models
  7. active optimization

Notebooks: - 06 Active Portfolio - 07 Factor Risk

Day 4 — Fixed-income foundations

  1. bond vocabulary and price
  2. YTM
  3. duration
  4. DV01
  5. convexity
  6. yield curve vocabulary
  7. key-rate duration
  8. spread/spread duration
  9. carry/roll introduction

Notebooks: - 08 Bond Math - 09 Duration and Curve Risk - 10 Credit Spreads

Day 5 — Scenario, attribution, integration

  1. scenario design
  2. risk-off scenario
  3. attribution intuition
  4. combined portfolio report
  5. deterministic analytics/tool boundary
  6. oral assessment

Notebooks: - 11 Scenarios - 12 Attribution

Daily rule

Never spend more than ~45 minutes searching for learning materials. Use the curated references and build.

Extension — Day 6: Rates portfolio management

This sprint was originally scoped to five days. Phase 6 of ROADMAP.md (rates portfolio management) extends it by one day, building on Day 4's fixed-income foundations.

  1. curve construction (bootstrapping), forward rates
  2. curve trades: steepeners, flatteners, butterflies
  3. scenario analysis on curve shocks
  4. swaps, swap DV01, swap spreads
  5. Treasury futures, hedge ratio
  6. carry and rolldown, repo/specialness/on-the-run vs. off-the-run, TIPS and breakeven inflation

Notebooks: - 14 Curve Construction and Forwards - 15 Curve Trades and Scenarios - 16 Swaps and Swap Spreads - 17 Futures and Hedging - 31 Carry, Roll, and Financing

Extension — Day 7: Risk models (VaR, ES, factor contribution)

Phase 4 of ROADMAP.md (risk models), building on Day 3's factor model.

  1. factor variance vs. specific variance contribution
  2. parametric VaR and expected shortfall
  3. stress testing (reuses Day 5's Scenario mechanism — see reference/concepts/stress_testing.md)

Notebooks: - 18 Factor Risk Contribution - 19 VaR and Expected Shortfall

Extension — Day 8: Credit

Phase 7 of ROADMAP.md (credit), building on Day 4's spread/spread duration. OAS and rating migration are covered conceptually only — see reference/fixed_income/oas.md and credit_migration.md for why they aren't implemented as code here.

  1. Z-spread
  2. credit curves, IG/HY
  3. default, recovery, hazard rate
  4. CDS and CDS-bond basis
  5. portfolio credit scenarios (reuses Day 5's Scenario mechanism and use_cases/spread_shock/README.md)
  6. fundamental credit analysis (leverage/coverage ratios, covenants), credit indices (CDX/iTraxx), leveraged loans (conceptual)

Notebooks: - 20 Z-Spread and Credit Curves - 21 Default, Recovery, and CDS - 32 Fundamental Credit and Indices

Extension — Day 9: Securitized / mortgages

Phase 8 of ROADMAP.md (securitized/mortgages). Full price-based negative convexity/OAS, non-agency tranche waterfalls, specified-pool pay-ups, and CMO/REMIC tranche cash-flow waterfalls are conceptual only — see reference/fixed_income/oas.md, mbs_convexity.md, non_agency_overview.md, specified_pools.md, and cmo_remic_structuring.md for why they aren't implemented as code here.

  1. agency MBS pass-throughs, amortization
  2. CPR / SMM / PSA prepayment
  3. effective duration (technique)
  4. extension and contraction (WAL response to rates)
  5. non-agency / ABS / CMBS overview
  6. TBA and the dollar roll (implied financing rate), specified pools and pay-ups, CMO/REMIC tranche structuring (sequential, PAC, support)

Notebooks: - 22 Pass-Throughs and Prepayment - 23 Effective Duration and Convexity - 33 TBA, Dollar Roll, and Structuring

Extension — Day 10: FX and commodities

Phase 9 of ROADMAP.md (FX and commodities).

  1. FX spot/forward, covered interest parity
  2. cross-currency basis
  3. FX carry and hedging
  4. commodity futures curves: contango, backwardation, roll yield

Notebooks: - 24 FX and Commodities

Extension — Day 11: Attribution and implementation (deep dive)

Phase 10 of ROADMAP.md, extending Day 5's attribution intuition into a real Brinson decomposition plus transaction costs/rebalancing. Liquidity is conceptual only — see reference/concepts/liquidity.md.

  1. Brinson attribution (allocation, selection, interaction)
  2. fixed-income carry/curve/spread decomposition
  3. transaction costs
  4. rebalancing trades

Notebooks: - 25 Brinson and Rebalancing

Extension — Day 12: Advanced portfolio construction

Phase 11 of ROADMAP.md, building on Day 2's mean-variance optimization. Hierarchical risk parity, regime-aware allocation, and multi-period optimization are conceptual only — see reference/concepts/hierarchical_risk_parity.md, regime_aware_allocation.md, and multi_period_optimization.md for why.

  1. covariance shrinkage (robust covariance)
  2. Black-Litterman
  3. risk parity
  4. scenario-robust (minimax) optimization

Notebooks: - 26 Shrinkage and Black-Litterman - 27 Risk Parity and Robust Optimization

Extension — Day 13: Agentic PM analytics

Phase 12 of ROADMAP.md, the final FICC roadmap phase. No notebook — this is the agent layer over everything built in Days 1–12, not new financial math. Read reference/concepts/agentic_pm_analytics.md first; it maps every roadmap bullet to the concrete artifact that satisfies it.

  1. tool schemas — docs/tool_schema.json
  2. natural-language query layer — /pm-query (skills/pm-query/SKILL.md)
  3. tutor agents — /tutor (skills/tutor/SKILL.md, built earlier)
  4. evals — docs/agentic_analytics_evals.md
  5. grounding, guardrails, explainability, observability — see how both skills apply AGENTS.md's rules and cite/log every answer

Extension — Day 14: Equity portfolio management

Phase 13 of ROADMAP.md, the first phase to extend the repo beyond docs/FICC_TAXONOMY.md's fixed-income/currencies/commodities scope into equities. Full multi-factor risk-model estimation (Barra/Axioma-style) is conceptual only — see reference/equity/equity_factor_investing.md for why.

  1. dividend discount models (Gordon growth, two-stage)
  2. relative valuation multiples (justified P/E, PEG)
  3. CAPM, beta, equity risk premium, Jensen's alpha
  4. active share and style tilt
  5. shareholder yield, buybacks, total shareholder return

Notebooks: - 28 Equity Valuation and CAPM - 29 Active Share, Factors, Shareholder Yield

Extension — Day 15: Derivatives and options

A curriculum-completeness audit found zero options/derivatives coverage anywhere in this repo despite deep coverage of linear instruments (futures, swaps, CDS) — this closes that gap. Full volatility-surface construction, American-exercise pricing, and the curve/annuity layer a real swaption or cap needs are conceptual only - see reference/derivatives/options_on_forwards_and_rates_options.md and option_strategies.md for why.

  1. Black-Scholes pricing (call and put)
  2. the Greeks: delta, gamma, vega, theta, rho
  3. put-call parity
  4. implied volatility
  5. Black-76 (options on forwards/futures) and how it extends to swaptions, caps, and floors
  6. option strategies: covered call, protective put, collar (conceptual)

Notebook: - 34 Black-Scholes, Greeks, and Rates Options

Extension — Day 16: Performance measurement, LDI, and asset allocation

The same completeness audit that found the options gap also found no performance-measurement fundamentals (time-weighted vs. money-weighted return, GIPS) and no asset-allocation framing on top of the existing optimization machinery. GIPS composite construction and full strategic/tactical asset allocation are conceptual only - see reference/concepts/performance_measurement.md and strategic_and_tactical_asset_allocation.md for why (the short version: SAA/TAA reuses mean_variance_optimization, black_litterman_posterior, and risk_parity_weights rather than needing a new formula).

  1. time-weighted return (TWR) vs. money-weighted return (MWR/IRR)
  2. GIPS and composite construction (conceptual)
  3. liability-driven investing: funded ratio, surplus
  4. duration/PV01 matching for liabilities (reuses dv01/hedge_ratio)
  5. strategic vs. tactical asset allocation (conceptual)

Notebook: - 35 Performance, LDI, and Asset Allocation

Extension — Day 17: Munis, convertibles, preferreds, and the wider universe

The last of four workstreams from the curriculum-completeness audit: narrower asset-class coverage and survey-level fluency in alternatives and ESG. Municipal and sovereign credit analysis, the convertible-bond straight-bond floor, and full alternatives/ESG scoring models are conceptual only — see reference/fixed_income/municipal_bonds.md, convertible_bonds.md, and reference/alternatives/*.md for why.

  1. municipal bonds: tax-equivalent yield
  2. convertible bonds: conversion value, conversion premium
  3. preferred securities: perpetuity valuation (reuses the equity module's Gordon growth function at zero growth)
  4. sovereign and EM debt: hard currency vs. local currency (conceptual)
  5. alternative investments overview: private equity, hedge funds, real assets, private debt, the J-curve (conceptual)
  6. ESG and sustainable investing: negative screening, best-in-class, ESG integration, engagement, impact investing (conceptual)

Notebook: - 36 Munis, Convertibles, Preferred, and Alternatives

Also new this pass: four use cases closing the last gaps in use_cases/ — FX Hedge, Commodity Futures Roll, MBS Extension Scenario, and Fundamental Credit Review.

Extension — Day 18: Capstone

The last day. Less hand-holding on purpose — this is where you compose concepts from across the whole curriculum on one realistic portfolio (using data/mock_portfolio.csv, mock_benchmark.csv, and mock_bonds.csv, previously unused by any notebook) instead of learning a new one.

  1. absolute risk decomposition by group
  2. active risk: tracking error, MCTE/CCTE, information ratio
  3. ex-ante vs. ex-post — did the risk model match reality?
  4. bond-level duration/DV01, a rates scenario, a credit scenario
  5. Brinson attribution
  6. writing the one-page PM summary

Notebook: - 30 Capstone: Full Portfolio Risk and Attribution Review