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Curriculum |
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FINC 430 Finance I (1): Effects of time and uncertainty on decision making. Topics include basic discounting techniques, stock and bond valuation, capital budgeting under certainty and uncertainty, asset pricing models, and efficient markets. Prerequisites: DECS 434, ACCT 430, and MECN 430 are recommended; all may be taken concurrently.
FINC 440 Finance I/II (1): Combines FINC 430 and FINC 441 into a one-quarter course, thereby doubling the coursework. Students receive a waiver out of FINC 430 and a grade counted in FINC 441. Option for first-year students interested in accelerating their studies of FINC and gaining flexibility in course choices. Prerequisites: DECS 434, ACCT 430, and MECN 430 are recommended; all may be taken concurrently.
FINC 441 Finance II (1): Capital budgeting decisions (which investments to make), dividend decisions, and capital structure decisions (how to raise capital). Analysis of how financial decisions affect firm value when markets are imperfect (e.g. taxes, bankruptcy costs, inefficient or uncompetitive financial markets, or self interested managers). Prerequisites: FINC 430 and DECS 434; ACCT 430 and MECN 430 recommended.
FINC 442 Financial Decisions (1): Managerial decision making as it relates to key corporate financial policies. Financial decisions with wide-ranging implications to the firm are analyzed through case studies. At its most fundamental level, the course attempts to improve problem-solving skills: problem definition, and the gathering and organizing of relevant information. Prerequisites: FINC 430 and FINC 441, or FINC 440.
FINC 443 Short-Term Financial Management (1): Major topics include cash management, cash allocation and disbursements, aggregate cash position management, managing short-term securities, cash forecasting, financial planning, bank credit and noncredit services, managing accounts receivable and accounts payable, and structuring the firm's overall liquidity policy. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 445 Venture Capital and Private Equity Investing (1): Key issues in private equity investing and creating long-term value in privately held companies. All aspects of private equity investing are addressed including sourcing, qualifying, and analyzing deals; negotiating, structuring, and pricing; creating value; and realizing value through various kinds of exit. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 446 Entrepreneurial Finance (1): Designed to teach prospective entrepreneurs the basic fundamentals and concepts of how to become an entrepreneur; focuses on the financial aspects through use of case studies. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 447 Financial Strategy and Tax Planning (1): Framework for analyzing the effects of taxation on financial decisions; applied to a variety of topics, including the choice of an organizational form, securities as tax-arbitrage devices, buying versus leasing, and international taxation. Tax knowledge not a prerequisite; both current and past tax law discussed. Course complementary to ACCT 460. Prerequisites: FINC 430 and FINC 440 or FINC 441.
FINC 448 Corporate Restructuring (1): Analysis of business strategies, legal strategies, and operating strategies involved in comprehensive corporate restructuring. Lectures, case studies, and guest speakers. Prerequisites: FINC 430 and FINC 441, or FINC 440.
FINC 449 Colloquium on Securitization (0.5) : Converting mortgages, auto loans, credit card receivables, and leases into marketable securities. Lectures by practitioners representing Wall Street, issuers, investors, and regulators. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 450 Banking and Credit Markets (1): Explores the role of banking institutions and credit markets, design of financial contracts and institutions, and public regulation of financial markets. The changing cost and distribution of information, market volatility, and regulatory considerations are used to explain more salient attributes of contracts and institutions. Challenges to management in a setting of rapid change is emphasized. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 451 Money Markets (1): An overview of major players, institutions, and instruments of the money market, theories and techniques useful in the money market and in the fixed income securities market, including pricing money market securities, analyzing yield curves and forward rates, analyzing various investment and borrowing strategies, modeling interest rates and spreads, pricing repurchase agreements and futures contracts, undertaking simple arbitrage and speculation, and understanding and interpreting the behavior of the Federal Reserve. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 452 Managing Financial Institutions (1): After an overview of different financial institutions, the focus shifts to managing credit risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk, and concludes with integrating financial services. Emphasizes basic ideas, tools, and business implications, using lectures, discussion, and case studies. Prerequisites: FINC 430 and basic accounting (ability to read income statements and balance sheets).
FINC 453 Risk Management and Insurance (1): An overview of risk-management functions. Considers three distinct but related issues: tools available to identify, measure, and manage risk and how to make decisions about how much risk should be transferred to others through insurance; overview of insurance and risk management markets; tools and background to current issues and debates in risk management, new insurance/risk transfer tools, and social insurance. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 460 Investments (1): Investment theory. Emphasizes optimal portfolio selection, determinants of expected rates of return in financial markets, and evaluation of relevant empirical research. Major attention devoted to the capital asset pricing model and the arbitrage pricing theory. Topics such as performance evaluation, options, futures, and trading costs may be covered. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 461 Investment Banking (1): Investment banking business as an intermediary in the capital and merger markets and how it serves both its issuing clients and investing customers. Focuses on several services it provides, how client relationships are established and maintained, and how problems are solved. Prerequisites: FINC 430 and FINC 441 or FINC 440; recommended that FINC 442 be taken prior to or concurrently with this course.
FINC 462 Investment Portfolio Management (1): Formulation and overall implementation of investment strategies. Consideration of the institutional environment in which investment decisions are made. Major emphasis on asset allocation strategies. Techniques are derived for matching the appropriate investment instruments with the constraints imposed by differing liability structures. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 463 Security Analysis (1): Techniques of financial statement analysis, with a focus on the use of financial information to value securities and make investment decisions. Topics include both firm-level analysis (review of basic discounted cash-flow valuation concepts, forecasting, comparables analysis) and macro-analysis (evidence of inefficiencies, ways to detect inefficiencies and develop profitable trading rules, and predicting events such as takeovers and bankruptcies). Prerequisites: FINC 430 and ACCT 430.
FINC 464 Fixed Income (1): How to characterize interest rates and use models to value interest rate dependent financial securities. Tools for evaluating, hedging and speculating on risk are emphasized.
FINC 465 Futures and Options Markets (1): Topics include pricing models for futures and options, speculation strategies, arbitrage, hedging techniques, and the development and mechanics of futures trading and options trading. Emphasizes financial risk management using futures and options. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 466 Financial Management in Transportation (1): Special problems in financial management for the transportation sector. Models of capital formation and financing, capital maintenance and utilization policies, specialized debt instruments, bankruptcy and restructuring, and joint public-private ventures. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 467 Derivative Securities (1): Sequel to FINC 465. Offers a broader and more technical coverage of derivatives. Topics include the foundations of option-pricing, Monte Carlo valuation, exotic options, fixed income derivatives, and risk management. Extensive use is made of spreadsheet-based valuation models. Prerequisites: FINC 465 or permission of instructor.
FINC 472 International Financial Decisions (1): A case approach to analyzing a variety of decisions in the international financial environment. Topics include multinational capital budgeting, including determination of the cost of capital and project evaluation in an international environment; performance evaluation and control of a foreign subsidiary; the international debt crisis; debt-equity swaps, capital flight, and debt-forgiveness; international portfolio management; new instruments of international FINC; political risk management; and managing in a hyperinflationary country. Prerequisites: FINC 470, FINC 430, and FINC 440 or FINC 441.
FINC 480 Public Financial Management (0.5) : Tax-exempt municipal market: issuers, underwriters, instruments, and buyers. Financial practices of state and local governments: budgeting, accounting, and financial management; revenues, expenditures, and debt management. Municipal markets, the securities industry, credit analysis, underwriting, and debt financing, including muni-related derivatives. Prepares students for careers in municipal financial services and consulting, as well as financial management positions in public and nonprofit organizations. Required research paper. Five-week course, offered alternate years. Prerequisites: FINC 430.
FINC 483 Advanced Derivatives (1): This course focuses on modern developments in the modeling and pricing of financial derivative securities. Topics include the pricing of contingent claims on equity, foreign exchange, volatility, interest rates and credit products. Prerequisites: Knowledge of the principles of modern asset pricing theory and of basic features of the plain-vanilla derivatives.
FINC 485 Introduction to Finance (1): Introduction to portfolio choice and equilibrium asset pricing. Topics include choice under uncertainty, arbitrage and state prices, the capital asset pricing model, the arbitrage pricing theory, representative agent models of asset pricing, and financial markets with differential information.
FINC 486 Seminar in Corporate Finance (1): Advanced seminar with emphasis on corporate FINC. Topics include the Modigliani-Miller invariance theorems; the objective of the firm with incomplete markets; the role of taxes, agency costs, and asymmetric information in the choice of capital structure; and optimal security design. Familiarity with material from FINC 485 required.
FINC 487 Dynamic Asset Pricing Theory (1): Basic arbitrage and equilibrium models of asset pricing in dynamic settings. Topics include the implications of no arbitrage for derivative security pricing and term-structure models, optimal portfolio selection, equilibrium models of asset pricing, and the representative agent. Necessary mathematical tools are introduced, including the Ito calculus and stochastic control.
FINC 488 The Econometrics of Financial Markets (1): Introduction to some of the commonly used econometric methods in the empirical financial markets area.
FINC 489 Empirical Corporate Finance (1): Prepares students to do research in Empirical Corporate Finance. Using papers on corporate finance, highlights the following empirical themes: endogeneity, difference in difference estimators, and event studies. Prerequisites: FINC 486 Corporate Finance or knowledge of contract theory and/or introductory industrial organization theory highly recommended.
FINC 499 Independent Study (1-3) : Permission of instructor and department required. May be repeated for credit.
FINC 512 Finance Seminar (1): Development of the system of financial intermediation with emphasis on recent changes. Students suggest discussion topics and write a paper.
FINC 520 Seminar in Finance (1): Current research on topics such as international FINC, empirical FINC, capital structure, and financial markets is analyzed. Usually requires in-class student presentations, as well as individual research projects. Topics vary.
FINC 530 Special Topics in Finance (1): Doctoral-level course offered on a one-time basis dealing with a special topic in the Finance field. Addresses a specific need within the program’s curriculum and/or a trend in the field.
FINC 590 Research (1-3) : Independent investigation of selected problems pertaining to thesis or dissertation. May be repeated for credit.
Related Courses
ACCT 444 Financial Planning for Mergers and Acquisitions (1): Shareholder value approach for selecting growth strategies, pricing acquisitions, and assessing corporate performance standards and executive incentives. A student project dealing with a comprehensive merger analysis is required. Prerequisites: ACCT 431, FINANCE 430, and MGR EDS 434.
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