MS Finance Handbooks

In this course, students will use financial econometric models to analyze problems of model specification, estimation, analysis and forecasting commonly faced by analysts in financial markets. The course materials cover the measurement and estimation of asset returns, earnings, macroeconomic data, risk and related applications in financial data analysis and visualization. Topics include regression analysis of time series/ARIMA models, multiple regression specifications and models of asset volatility including ARCH and GARCH. Throughout the course, students will use the statistical functions of the R programming language to analyze, model and forecast a variety of financial data.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023 | Spring 2024

"This course is broken into two segments. In the first segment we¿ll learn about IPOs, an introduction to the trading process and how it works, and complete the Bloomberg Market Concepts Certification which will cover Economic Indicators, Currencies, Fixed Income, Equities along with introductions to Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. Students will be introduced to the early leaders in algorithmic trading and document their own trading strategies. In the second segment of the course, students will gain a solid understanding of order types, ECNs, and the different types of participants in our markets. We will cover topics such as the impact of High Frequency Trading and the usage of Dark Pools."

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGF 631 (or equivalent)

This course provides an in-depth study of practical applications and current issues faced by internationally active, large and complex banking organizations within the financial markets. In the first segment we will learn financial concepts such as ratio analysis, cash flow determination, and understand how Banks assess the relative risk of a corporation within the financial markets. We will then apply risk model using live case studies to assess the corporation's default risk. In the second segment we will focus on international trade finance and foreign exchange and how Banks assist corporations in hedging foreign exchange transactions. Working on case studies, students will learn international arbitrage, derivation of the International Fisher Effect, and understand and apply using practical applications currency futures, forwards and options in the international foreign exchange markets.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023 | Spring 2024

This course utilizes "R," instead of Excel, as the computational tool. Students will learn how to download and process public data associated with economics, finance and accounting. Students will also learn how to apply "R" to various finance theories.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: Two graduate courses, preferably Co

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts and issues of financial accounting with emphasis on the interpretation of financial statements. The course addresses the economic consequences of transactions and their presentation on corporate financial statements. A primary objective is to introduce corporate financial statements as a tool for company valuation and decision making. Emphasis is on the analysis of effects of decisions on financial performance and use of financial statements to evaluate organizations.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:

Development of a framework for the analysis of financial statements: study of the firm's competitive environment and business strategy, critical review of accounting quality, assessment of financial condition, and evaluation of future prospects. Methods for translating forecasts into firm value estimates are studied, as well as the use of the analysis framework in making specific business decisions, such as investing in equity securities and evaluating firms' creditworthiness.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Spring 2024

The objective of this course is to ensure students have a solid foundation in the mathematical foundations required to understand and work with complex financial securities and derivatives. This foundation will be useful in higher level finance courses and as practitioners working in financial markets. Topics covered include stochastic calculus, continuous time finance, numerical methods, finite differences, and taylor series approximations. Applications from finance such as bond pricing, option pricing and portfolio theory are used as examples to illustrate the mathematics.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

Students taking this course should expect to learn about financial derivatives. Among others, students will learn about how to price financial derivatives and how to incorporate various real-world frictions into binomial trees and stochastic processes (such as underlying the commonly used Black & Scholes model). In a case-study we will use R programming to replicate the risk-neutral price of a variance swap (underlying the so called Volatility Index or VIX). The course will be of particular interest for students who contemplate pursuing a career in the financial industry, e.g. as a Quantitative Analyst. The required prior courses depend on your trajectory (e.g., MGF 633 "Investment Management" or MGF 634 "Quantitative Methods in Finance"). Please consult your study guide for details. In general, students are expected to possess good knowledge of mathematics and statistics. Students should also feel comfortable with Excel and some basic programming knowledge will be helpful. Mathematical, statistical, and Excel skills required for this course will be reviewed during the course.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Spring 2024

Spring 2024 (01/24/2024 - 05/07/2024)

This purpose of this course is to provide business students with six core abilities in macro/global economics: to understand the historical debate between government's role and free enterprise in the economy; to understand the components of the aggregate demand for goods and services; to be able to predict the effects of monetary policy on interest rates, prices, and national income; to understand the benefits of long term supply side changes and the policies that affect supply-side economics, to understand the impact of international trade and financial investment flows on interest rates, exchange rates and national income; and to be able to predict how various economic policies affect the long term growth potential of both developed and emerging markets.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

The objective of this course is to explore how institutions and leaders create value for their internal and external constituents by examining corporate governance and its respective nomenclatures.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGF 631 (or equivalent)

The seminar focuses on investment policy and portfolio management of tax-exempt institutional funds, with an emphasis on endowments. The class will discuss asset allocation, risk, the role of active management, incentive structures, governance, and manager selection and evaluation.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGF 631 or equivalent or

This course introduces students to financial innovations and new products in the financial system. The course provides a general understanding of the financial evolution process, the causes and consequences of financial innovations, and the cost and value of these innovations. The course covers such topics as theory of financial innovation, the financial engineering process, birth and growth of new financial products, financial innovations and new debt, equity and derivative products, and the role of financial instruments in financial, investment and ristk management. The course emphasizes the motivations of financial innovation and methods to design financial instruments to solve complex financial problems and enhance investment returns.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Provides a detailed understanding of the merger and acquisition process, both from the sell-side (using auctions or negotiated sale processes) and the buy-side (including the perspective of strategic buyers and private equity firms). Students will learn key aspects of acquisition strategy, deal structure, valuation, due diligence, financial modeling, accounting and regulatory issues, as well as preparation and presentation of oral and written investment memorandums. The course will also introduce the financing and transaction documents necessary to consummate an acquisition and steps to improve post-closing success.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 633 or MGE 604 or MS Accounting

Many aspects of finance require an intermediary (middleman) to allow the exchange of assets and information. Financial intermediation has evolved from early systems of banking to our current system of financial intermediaries, where firms facilitate payment/transactions, capital fundraising, provide advice and financial management services. Technology is changing the way financial intermediaries deliver all of these services. Because of the hybrid nature of this area (Finance and Information Systems), it is increasingly important that finance students understand information system issues/limitations and vice versa.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Spring 2024

Spring 2024 (01/24/2024 - 05/07/2024)

This course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of database management systems (DBMS) and the skills needed to design and implement a relational database. Students will be introduced to data modeling concepts, modeling tools, the process of transforming conceptual models into relational database designs, and finally the steps needed to implement those designs. Emphasis is placed on Entity-Relationship diagramming, data normalization, database administration, and data definition, data manipulation and query development using Structured Query Language (SQL). Other topics covered include: object-oriented databases, database security and integrity, web/database integration, application development in a Client/Server environment, distributed databases, data warehousing, data mining and knowledge management via the Internet to support electronic commerce. Readings, lectures, interactive case assignments and a database design project reinforce the role of DBMS in supporting organizational systems, transaction processing and decision support applications.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

This course provides an introduction to the systems development life cycle (SDLC) emphasizing the recent adaptive approaches to SDLC, such as the unified process life cycle and agile methods. The course focuses on the disciplines of business modeling, requirements analysis, and logical design and utilizes the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for analysis, modeling, and design of business-oriented information systems. Information assurance issues of system controls and security are covered with respect to their impact on system requirements and design models.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Spring 2024

Spring 2024 (01/24/2024 - 05/07/2024)

The course is designed to introduce basic tenets of IT auditing and structured way of conducting IT audits. The course will teach students concepts and approaches to audit, control, monitor, and assess an organization's information technology and business systems. The course will impart skills and knowledge to assess vulnerabilities, report on compliance and institute controls within an enterprise.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

Students will learn contemporary terms, philosophies, technologies, controls and strategies that go into buttressing an organization¿s informational, data-driven, well-being. Students will gain experience assess the growing number of cyber risks to our organizational assets, and how to treat these risks by prioritizing and arraying resources. Common information security controls (both technical and programmatic) will be covered, guided by an analysis of the leading information and cyber security control frameworks such as ISO 27000, NIST CSF, and the CIS top 18 security controls. Students will learn about strategic level security program implementation including, policy management, governance, return on investment and compliance whilst continually improving risk exposure. Cybersecurity is one part of the cross-functional milieu that this class will examine. Multidisciplinary topics that intersect with security program implementation will include Technical, Managerial, Executive, Finance, Human Resources, Business Continuity, Strategic IT Management, Legal, Psychological, Audit, Compliance and Control partnerships. Various IT hosting strategies including on-premises and cloud classifications will be examined for their security merits, challenges and risk exposures. Emerging impactful topics such as new/changing regulation and growth of generative artificial intelligence will be examined in terms of their implications on the information security industry and the deployment of future-proof protections.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGS 602 and MGS 605 or MIS student

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

This course is designed to introduce students to the technical facets of the information technology and systems field. Students will learn about the contemporary technologies that underlie and support modern-day technology infrastructures. As a corollary, students will be able to weigh how strategic enterprise technical considerations have a bearing on organization competitiveness, vision and strategy. Key technologies covered will include hardware capabilities, data center hosting, virtualization techniques, cloud infrastructures (public, private, hybrid, IaaS, PaaS, Saas), networking, operating system and software capabilities. Student will also learn of key emerging technologies in the field along with the ability to analyze these technologies for maturity and opportunistic fit. Students will be led down a journey of how IT can be aligned as an organizational partner, enabling it to act as a crucible for innovation. Discussions on information security, resourcing considerations and enterprise architecture will underpin all topics.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

This course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of database management systems (DBMS) and the skills needed to design and implement a relational database. Students will be introduced to data modeling concepts, modeling tools, the process of transforming conceptual models into relational database designs, and finally the steps needed to implement those designs. Emphasis is placed on Entity-Relationship diagramming, data normalization, database administration, and data definition, data manipulation and query development using Structured Query Language (SQL). Other topics covered include: object-oriented databases, database security and integrity, web/database integration, application development in a Client/Server environment, distributed databases, data warehousing, data mining and knowledge management via the Internet to support electronic commerce. Readings, lectures, interactive case assignments and a database design project reinforce the role of DBMS in supporting organizational systems, transaction processing and decision support applications.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

Students will learn contemporary terms, philosophies, technologies, controls and strategies that go into buttressing an organization¿s informational, data-driven, well-being. Students will gain experience assess the growing number of cyber risks to our organizational assets, and how to treat these risks by prioritizing and arraying resources. Common information security controls (both technical and programmatic) will be covered, guided by an analysis of the leading information and cyber security control frameworks such as ISO 27000, NIST CSF, and the CIS top 18 security controls. Students will learn about strategic level security program implementation including, policy management, governance, return on investment and compliance whilst continually improving risk exposure. Cybersecurity is one part of the cross-functional milieu that this class will examine. Multidisciplinary topics that intersect with security program implementation will include Technical, Managerial, Executive, Finance, Human Resources, Business Continuity, Strategic IT Management, Legal, Psychological, Audit, Compliance and Control partnerships. Various IT hosting strategies including on-premises and cloud classifications will be examined for their security merits, challenges and risk exposures. Emerging impactful topics such as new/changing regulation and growth of generative artificial intelligence will be examined in terms of their implications on the information security industry and the deployment of future-proof protections.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGS 602 and MGS 605 or MIS student

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental concepts and issues of financial accounting with emphasis on the interpretation of financial statements. The course addresses the economic consequences of transactions and their presentation on corporate financial statements. A primary objective is to introduce corporate financial statements as a tool for company valuation and decision making. Emphasis is on the analysis of effects of decisions on financial performance and use of financial statements to evaluate organizations.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:

Development of a framework for the analysis of financial statements: study of the firm's competitive environment and business strategy, critical review of accounting quality, assessment of financial condition, and evaluation of future prospects. Methods for translating forecasts into firm value estimates are studied, as well as the use of the analysis framework in making specific business decisions, such as investing in equity securities and evaluating firms' creditworthiness.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Spring 2024

This purpose of this course is to provide business students with six core abilities in macro/global economics: to understand the historical debate between government's role and free enterprise in the economy; to understand the components of the aggregate demand for goods and services; to be able to predict the effects of monetary policy on interest rates, prices, and national income; to understand the benefits of long term supply side changes and the policies that affect supply-side economics, to understand the impact of international trade and financial investment flows on interest rates, exchange rates and national income; and to be able to predict how various economic policies affect the long term growth potential of both developed and emerging markets.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

The objective of this course is to explore how institutions and leaders create value for their internal and external constituents by examining corporate governance and its respective nomenclatures.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGF 631 (or equivalent)

"This course is broken into two segments. In the first segment we¿ll learn about IPOs, an introduction to the trading process and how it works, and complete the Bloomberg Market Concepts Certification which will cover Economic Indicators, Currencies, Fixed Income, Equities along with introductions to Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin. Students will be introduced to the early leaders in algorithmic trading and document their own trading strategies. In the second segment of the course, students will gain a solid understanding of order types, ECNs, and the different types of participants in our markets. We will cover topics such as the impact of High Frequency Trading and the usage of Dark Pools."

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGF 631 (or equivalent)

This course provides an in-depth treatment of corporate finance concepts for all finance majors, with the purpose of furthering students' understanding of major corporate financial policies and decisions. These decisions include choosing between competing investment opportunities, measuring risk and return, how to value a business, how much debt to issue, how much equity to issue, what level of dividend to payout, and incentive structure for managers, and so on. The course starts with a discussion on corporate financial goals and corporate governance issues. It then proceeds to cover topics that center on corporate investment decisions, corporate valuation, and capital structure issues.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023 | Spring 2024

The seminar focuses on investment policy and portfolio management of tax-exempt institutional funds, with an emphasis on endowments. The class will discuss asset allocation, risk, the role of active management, incentive structures, governance, and manager selection and evaluation.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGF 631 or equivalent or

This course introduces students to financial innovations and new products in the financial system. The course provides a general understanding of the financial evolution process, the causes and consequences of financial innovations, and the cost and value of these innovations. The course covers such topics as theory of financial innovation, the financial engineering process, birth and growth of new financial products, financial innovations and new debt, equity and derivative products, and the role of financial instruments in financial, investment and ristk management. The course emphasizes the motivations of financial innovation and methods to design financial instruments to solve complex financial problems and enhance investment returns.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Provides a detailed understanding of the merger and acquisition process, both from the sell-side (using auctions or negotiated sale processes) and the buy-side (including the perspective of strategic buyers and private equity firms). Students will learn key aspects of acquisition strategy, deal structure, valuation, due diligence, financial modeling, accounting and regulatory issues, as well as preparation and presentation of oral and written investment memorandums. The course will also introduce the financing and transaction documents necessary to consummate an acquisition and steps to improve post-closing success.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: MGF 633 or MGE 604 or MS Accounting

The financial services industry is very dynamic and continues to undergo dramatic changes. Many forces contribute to the changes including interest rates, overall market and credit factors, consolidation within the industry, and regulations. From this perspective, the course explores the basic management problems in the credit, investment, and financing administration functions of financial institutions, including commercial banks in the United States and abroad.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGQ 608 and MGQ 609 or a

This course is designed to familiarize students with the core concepts related to international financial management, including foreign exchange markets (from institutional details to quantitative models for the forecasting of future exchange rates), currency risk derivatives (spanning both a discussion of contract characteristics and quantitative methods for pricing and valuation of currency forwards, options, and swap contracts), quantitative approaches for risk management and hedging in cross-border settings, quantitative analysis of currency arbitrage operations, analysis of translation, economic, and political risks, cross-border financing, issues with cross-border taxation, analysis of institutional details and recent statistics on foreign debt and equity markets, and other topics.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 and MGQ 608 or MS Finance S

Fall 2023 (08/28/2023 - 12/11/2023)

This course utilizes "R," instead of Excel, as the computational tool. Students will learn how to download and process public data associated with economics, finance and accounting. Students will also learn how to apply "R" to various finance theories.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered:
Pre-Requisite: Two graduate courses, preferably Co

This course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of database management systems (DBMS) and the skills needed to design and implement a relational database. Students will be introduced to data modeling concepts, modeling tools, the process of transforming conceptual models into relational database designs, and finally the steps needed to implement those designs. Emphasis is placed on Entity-Relationship diagramming, data normalization, database administration, and data definition, data manipulation and query development using Structured Query Language (SQL). Other topics covered include: object-oriented databases, database security and integrity, web/database integration, application development in a Client/Server environment, distributed databases, data warehousing, data mining and knowledge management via the Internet to support electronic commerce. Readings, lectures, interactive case assignments and a database design project reinforce the role of DBMS in supporting organizational systems, transaction processing and decision support applications.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

This course provides an introduction to the systems development life cycle (SDLC) emphasizing the recent adaptive approaches to SDLC, such as the unified process life cycle and agile methods. The course focuses on the disciplines of business modeling, requirements analysis, and logical design and utilizes the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for analysis, modeling, and design of business-oriented information systems. Information assurance issues of system controls and security are covered with respect to their impact on system requirements and design models.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Spring 2024

The course is designed to introduce basic tenets of IT auditing and structured way of conducting IT audits. The course will teach students concepts and approaches to audit, control, monitor, and assess an organization's information technology and business systems. The course will impart skills and knowledge to assess vulnerabilities, report on compliance and institute controls within an enterprise.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Students will learn contemporary terms, philosophies, technologies, controls and strategies that go into buttressing an organization¿s informational, data-driven, well-being. Students will gain experience assess the growing number of cyber risks to our organizational assets, and how to treat these risks by prioritizing and arraying resources. Common information security controls (both technical and programmatic) will be covered, guided by an analysis of the leading information and cyber security control frameworks such as ISO 27000, NIST CSF, and the CIS top 18 security controls. Students will learn about strategic level security program implementation including, policy management, governance, return on investment and compliance whilst continually improving risk exposure. Cybersecurity is one part of the cross-functional milieu that this class will examine. Multidisciplinary topics that intersect with security program implementation will include Technical, Managerial, Executive, Finance, Human Resources, Business Continuity, Strategic IT Management, Legal, Psychological, Audit, Compliance and Control partnerships. Various IT hosting strategies including on-premises and cloud classifications will be examined for their security merits, challenges and risk exposures. Emerging impactful topics such as new/changing regulation and growth of generative artificial intelligence will be examined in terms of their implications on the information security industry and the deployment of future-proof protections.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGS 602 and MGS 605 or MIS student

This course is designed to introduce students to the technical facets of the information technology and systems field. Students will learn about the contemporary technologies that underlie and support modern-day technology infrastructures. As a corollary, students will be able to weigh how strategic enterprise technical considerations have a bearing on organization competitiveness, vision and strategy. Key technologies covered will include hardware capabilities, data center hosting, virtualization techniques, cloud infrastructures (public, private, hybrid, IaaS, PaaS, Saas), networking, operating system and software capabilities. Student will also learn of key emerging technologies in the field along with the ability to analyze these technologies for maturity and opportunistic fit. Students will be led down a journey of how IT can be aligned as an organizational partner, enabling it to act as a crucible for innovation. Discussions on information security, resourcing considerations and enterprise architecture will underpin all topics.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

This course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of database management systems (DBMS) and the skills needed to design and implement a relational database. Students will be introduced to data modeling concepts, modeling tools, the process of transforming conceptual models into relational database designs, and finally the steps needed to implement those designs. Emphasis is placed on Entity-Relationship diagramming, data normalization, database administration, and data definition, data manipulation and query development using Structured Query Language (SQL). Other topics covered include: object-oriented databases, database security and integrity, web/database integration, application development in a Client/Server environment, distributed databases, data warehousing, data mining and knowledge management via the Internet to support electronic commerce. Readings, lectures, interactive case assignments and a database design project reinforce the role of DBMS in supporting organizational systems, transaction processing and decision support applications.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Students will learn contemporary terms, philosophies, technologies, controls and strategies that go into buttressing an organization¿s informational, data-driven, well-being. Students will gain experience assess the growing number of cyber risks to our organizational assets, and how to treat these risks by prioritizing and arraying resources. Common information security controls (both technical and programmatic) will be covered, guided by an analysis of the leading information and cyber security control frameworks such as ISO 27000, NIST CSF, and the CIS top 18 security controls. Students will learn about strategic level security program implementation including, policy management, governance, return on investment and compliance whilst continually improving risk exposure. Cybersecurity is one part of the cross-functional milieu that this class will examine. Multidisciplinary topics that intersect with security program implementation will include Technical, Managerial, Executive, Finance, Human Resources, Business Continuity, Strategic IT Management, Legal, Psychological, Audit, Compliance and Control partnerships. Various IT hosting strategies including on-premises and cloud classifications will be examined for their security merits, challenges and risk exposures. Emerging impactful topics such as new/changing regulation and growth of generative artificial intelligence will be examined in terms of their implications on the information security industry and the deployment of future-proof protections.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGS 602 and MGS 605 or MIS student

Large scale computing environments aggregate resources from many autonomous computers to satisfy the information processing needs of modern enterprises. This course introduces techniques for creating functional, usable, high-performance distributed systems. Objectives are twofold: (1) gain a solid understanding of the technical issues, concepts and systems in the rapidly advancing technologies in distributed computing, and (2) acquire substantial knowledge on how to work with big data in distributed environments. The course is organized into two parts: study of DCS technologies, and study of large scale systems. We will discuss communication and networking services, application support services, large scale distributed system design, data management and interoperability of systems including consistency and data replication. Students will learn to use a framework for data intensive distributed applications (Apache Hadoop) and an associated parallel programming model, MapReduce.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Investment in government and business infrastructure has lead to the accumulation of vast amounts of data in recent years. This course will discuss how techniques from convex optimization can be used to extract useful knowledge and business value from the data collected. It introduces students to the theory of convex optimization of relevance to managerial decision making and machine learning. Topics include convex sets and functions, formulation of convex optimization problems, and convex optimization algorithms including gradient, sub-gradient, proximal and interior point methods. Numerous examples will be chosen from machine learning problems including classification, regression and clustering. Students will have hands on experience with the R programming language and optimization packages including MOSEK. We will examine real world examples and case studies from text mining, medical applications, fraud detection, finance, and social networks.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Spring 2024

This course provides students with a general understanding of the operation of capital markets and basic analytical tools of investment management. Specifically, the course covers such topics as principles of valuation, risk analysis, modern portfolio theory, Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), market microstructure, index models, arbitrage pricing models, bonds and common stocks valuation, efficient market hypotheses, investment management, and option pricing models.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023 | Spring 2024

The financial services industry is very dynamic and continues to undergo dramatic changes. Many forces contribute to the changes including interest rates, overall market and credit factors, consolidation within the industry, and regulations. From this perspective, the course explores the basic management problems in the credit, investment, and financing administration functions of financial institutions, including commercial banks in the United States and abroad.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 or MGQ 608 and MGQ 609 or a

This course is designed to familiarize students with the core concepts related to international financial management, including foreign exchange markets (from institutional details to quantitative models for the forecasting of future exchange rates), currency risk derivatives (spanning both a discussion of contract characteristics and quantitative methods for pricing and valuation of currency forwards, options, and swap contracts), quantitative approaches for risk management and hedging in cross-border settings, quantitative analysis of currency arbitrage operations, analysis of translation, economic, and political risks, cross-border financing, issues with cross-border taxation, analysis of institutional details and recent statistics on foreign debt and equity markets, and other topics.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023
Pre-Requisite: MGF 611 and MGQ 608 or MS Finance S

This course provides students with a general understanding of the operation of capital markets and basic analytical tools of investment management. Specifically, the course covers such topics as principles of valuation, risk analysis, modern portfolio theory, Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), market microstructure, index models, arbitrage pricing models, bonds and common stocks valuation, efficient market hypotheses, investment management, and option pricing models.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023 | Spring 2024

The objective of this course is to ensure students have a solid foundation in the mathematical foundations required to understand and work with complex financial securities and derivatives. This foundation will be useful in higher level finance courses and as practitioners working in financial markets. Topics covered include stochastic calculus, continuous time finance, numerical methods, finite differences, and taylor series approximations. Applications from finance such as bond pricing, option pricing and portfolio theory are used as examples to illustrate the mathematics.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023

Objectives of this technical course include providing students with knowledge of specific trading mechanics, basic economic concepts and technical asset valuation tools to successfully employ a wide variety of derivative securities into a risk management context; as well as to understand risk-return tradeoffs associated with specialized speculative strategies in derivatives markets. A broad survey of rapidly-changing forward, futures, options, swaps (and other related derivative types) is followed by emphasis upon asset pricing models of complex financial instruments using both classical economic theory and advanced mathematical techniques. Basic knowledge of differential calculus is expected. Basics of stochastic calculus will be covered. Students will be prepared to employ material learned into a corporate (or smaller firm) environment for management of business-related risk from fluctuating commodity prices, interest rates changes, foreign exchange fluctuations and construction of stock/bond investment fund 'portfolio insurance'.

Credits: 3
Semesters offered: Fall 2023 | Spring 2024
Co-Requisite: MGF 633 or MS Accounting Majors.