What is a Portfolio Manager? Role and Career Guide

What is a portfolio manager?

Portfolio managers work for investors who entrust them with funds to invest on the financial markets. They make investment decisions concerning the allocation of funds within the portfolio. To do this they must analyse the macro-economic, fundamental and quantitative aspects of the assets so they can choose which ones to invest in. They often have several portfolios with differently scaled predictions: short-term, medium-term and long-term. If the portfolio manager works for a small portfolio management company, he will also be a trader and will place market orders himself, for larger groups, he will entrust his orders to a trading desk where execution traders will be responsible for placing the orders.

How to become a portfolio manager?

To be a portfolio manager you need to have two important centres of knowledge: market finance coupled with experience of the legal and pecuniary aspects of portfolio management.

The most recognised training for portfolio managers are:

• Leading business schools specialising in finance.
• University degrees (master’s) specialising in finance

A portfolio manager’s salary

The average annual salary of a portfolio manager is as follows:

• Between €46,000 and €56,000 fixed + bonuses for a junior portfolio manager
• Over €150,000 + bonuses for a senior portfolio manager with good results

Fact sheets on the principle market finance professions