Finance Certificate Program

This course covers theory and practice of public finance, including welfare aspects of taxation and public expenditure decisions; budgeting; public investment; external costs and benefitsl; and public debt. Prerequisites: ECON 281, 310-A,-B.

This course will cover many of the basic concepts and facts needed to understand the functioning of international financial markets, including determination of exchange rates, balance of payments, and international asset flows and prices; international transmission of macroeconomic disturbances. Prerequisite: ECON 281, 310-A,-B, or equivalent.

An introductory course covering the basic concepts and models used in finance. Explores the mathematics and spreadsheet modeling techniques used in evaluating various financial assets, including stocks and bonds. Also surveys the risk-return tradeoff in financial markets and how investors gauge risk, as well as the basic concepts of Markowitz's mean-variance portfolio theory. The nature and impact of interest-rate risk on financial institutions is considered, and the duration of a financial asset is introduced in this context. Introduces the efficient market hypothesis and its implications for personal investing and corporate finance. Prerequisite: MATH 101, STAT 202, or college algebra, statistics, financial accounting, microeconomics, and macroeconomics, or equivalents. Carries business credit.

This course covers capital budgeting, or how corporate managers determine where to invest a company's funds; how companies determine what an appropriate discount rate would be for a given capital investment; the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) models used to estimate a firm's cost of equity, along with a detailed consideration of how beta is estimated for the CAPM; how a company derives its weighted average cost of capital (WACC); the dividend policy decision; and capital structure theory. Financial planning models will also be considered in depth. This course also covers the adjustments typically made to financial statement data to accommodate the needs and viewpoints of financial analysts and investors. Finally, we examine the topic of corporate risk management (hedging techniques). Prerequisite: FINANCE 202 or equivalent.

The main objective of this course is for students to gain an understanding of the role of financial institutions and markets from a financial manager's perspective. Within this context, we focus on the process of financial intermediation within the economy. In particular, we consider how financial intermediaries facilitate the efficient flow of funds from savers to borrowers in such a way as to benefit the economy as a whole and the historical and regulatory development of financial institutions within the United States, comparing U.S. institutions with those in other countries. In so doing, we discover how problems facing managers of financial institutions have changed over time, thereby gaining a clearer understanding of how these institutions and markets have evolved and why. Financial managers of non-financial institutions also find this course of relevance, since they must deal with managers of financial markets and institutions on a daily basis. Since financial institutions are becoming more and more alike, the emphasis in this course is on basic principles that apply to all such institutions. Prerequisite: FINANCE 202. 

This course examines the theory underlying the construction of a financial assets portfolio with the objective of maximizing expected return for a specified tolerable level of risk. Topics covered include, among others, risk aversion and utility functions; diversification; capital allocation to risky assets (the separation property); optimal risky portfolios; index models; the Capital Asset Pricing Model and multifactor models of risk and return; and the efficient market hypothesis. Although some of these topics are covered briefly in FINANCE 202, the focus in this course is on how these issues affect an investor's optimal portfolio choices. Prerequisite: FINANCE 202 or equivalent. 

This course is an in-depth exploration of five different vehicles of investment, speculation, and hedging from a portfolio manager's perspective (such as a pension or mutual fund manager), building on the portfolio theory developed in FINANCE 364. Vehicles discussed are equities, bonds, mortgage-backed securities, futures, and options. Portfolio performance measures are also discussed. Prerequisite: FINANCE 364 or equivalent. This course was formerly FINANCE 390 Special Topics in Finance: Portfolio Management.

In the last 35 years, exchange-traded options and futures contracts on financial assets and commodities have grown exponentially. A "future" is a binding, legal agreement to buy or sell a given asset or commodity. An "option" is a right--but not an obligation--to buy or sell an asset at a certain price in a given period. These derivative securities are used by individuals and companies for speculative gain and as a means to manage risk while reducing the cost of doing business. The growth in options and futures has been accompanied by innovative products, such as bundled portfolios of options, futures, and their underlying securities. This course provides students with the skills needed to value and use options, futures, and related financial contracts. Topics include arbitrage, hedging, spreading, pricing relations, models such as Black Scholes and cost of carry, and currency and interest-rate swaps. Prerequisites: FINANCE 202 or equivalent.