University Bulletin (2010-2011)

FIN 201a Financial Theory
Prerequisite: ECON 210f or statistics (may be taken concurrently). May not be taken by students who have taken FIN 205a.
Covers topics related to financial economics, including investors' attitudes toward risk, capital allocation, portfolio selection, asset pricing models (Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory), the efficient market hypothesis, fixed income markets, equity valuation, and options and futures markets. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Hilscher or Mr. Raviv

FIN 202a International Corporate Finance
Prerequisite: FIN 212a (may be taken concurrently)
Focuses on how companies make their investment, financing, and dividend decisions in a global environment. Examines the theory and practices of firms through a combination of current articles, problems in the text, and case analysis. Students will have a firm understanding of how companies create value through their decisions. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Ballantine, Ms. Bulan, or Ms. Ciamarra

FIN 203f International Financial Management
Prerequisites: FIN 201a, FIN 202a, FIN 212a, and ECON 201a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Explores the characteristics of international financial markets and evaluates associated risks and benefits. Addresses the distinct risks multinationals face, the financial tools they use to manage these risks, their tax and working capital management, and their financing and investment decisions. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Sisli Ciamarra

FIN 205a Accelerated Financial Theory
This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken FIN 201a.
An accelerated version of FIN 201a. Relies more heavily on statistics and basic calculus and covers more material. Topics include investors' attitudes toward risk, capital allocation, portfolio selection, asset pricing models (capital asset pricing model and the arbitrage pricing theory), the efficient market hypothesis and behavioral finance, fixed income markets and the yields curve, equity valuation, and derivatives markets (options and futures). Usually offered every year.
Mr. Alt

FIN 212a Accounting and Financial Analysis
May not be taken for credit by students who have taken FIN 210f or FIN 211f.
Introduction to basic accounting principles, including analysis of financial statements using case studies. Develops fundamental concepts and accounts and applies them to income measurement, capital values, and costs, with a focus on international accounting issues. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Anderson, Mr. Angell, Mr. Keith, or Ms. Weihs

FIN 213a Intermediate Financial Accounting
Prerequisite: FIN 212a or an approved an introductory course in the area of financial accounting.
Students should be familiar with the formal financial statements, transaction analysis, income measurement and accural accounting. This course provides an extensive expansion of the introductory accounting course. Additional topics include revenue recognition, long term construction contracts, deferred taxes, capital leases, pensions, inventory valuation, dollar value LIFO, earnings per share and share based compensation. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Keith

FIN 214a Managerial Accounting
Prerequisite: FIN 212a.
Introduction to internal reporting issues and problems employed in planning, control, and evaluation. Topics include cost behavior, overhead cost allocation, budgeting, and variance analysis. Taught from the perspective of the decision maker rather than the accountant who prepares the information. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Anderson or Mr. Keith

FIN 216f Financial Statement Analysis
Prerequisite: FIN 212a or FIN 213a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Designed to develop skills in analyzing external financial reports. Topics include financial statements terminology, mergers and acquisitions, cash flow analysis, and foreign exchange and foreign tax issues. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Keith or Ms. Weihs

FIN 217f Financial Modeling
Prerequisite: FIN 202a and FIN 212a. May take FIN 217f during second module concurrently with FIN 202a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Introduces quantitative modeling techniques for analyzing the financial performance of projects and companies and valuing earning streams. A key objective is to help students develop sophisticated skills in using spreadsheets and related software through cases and hands-on applications. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Canella

FIN 218f Financial Modeling II
Prerequisite: FIN 217f. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Continues Financial Modeling I (Fin 217f) in the analysis of quantitative financial performance of projects and companies and valuing earning streams. It supplements Fin 217f in its use of real options for valuations, new industries with their own peculiarities (insurance, pharmaceuticals), and the privatization of a telecommunications firm. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Canella

FIN 221f International Banking
Prerequisite: FIN 201a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Provides a survey of international banking. Topics will include structures and functions of global banks, financial innovations, syndications, offshore banking centers, supervision, and risk analysis. Students will use case studies and will form teams to perform a country analysis project. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FIN 222f International Capital Markets
This seminar provides students with a better understanding of the forces driving change in the international capital markets and how change is reflected in selected sub-sectors of the capital market. Usually offered every year; not offered in 2010-2011.
Staff

FIN 223f Project Finance
Prerequisites: FIN 202a, FIN 217f. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Examines the financial, economic, political, and technological factors that affect very large, capital-intensive projects. Looks at how they are combined into a coherent structure and financed via a combination of non-recourse debt and equity. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Canella

FIN 230a Trading and Exchanges: Focus on Foreign Exchange
Prerequisites: FIN 201a, basic statistics.
The microeconomics of financial markets, with special focus on the foreign exchange market. Topics include market structure, transparency, determination of bid-ask spreads, price discovery, common trading strategies, currency market efficiency. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Osler

FIN 231f Private Equity
Prerequisites: FIN 202a and 212. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Explores the history, structure, players and adjacent industries of Private Equity; the kinds of companies that make attractive candidates for investment; how PE firms add value; what they do when things go wrong; and how they create successful exits. Usually offered every year.
Mr. McKay

FIN 232a Mergers and Acquisitions Analysis
Prerequisites: FIN 201a and FIN 202a (may be taken concurrently).
Reviews the core concepts involved in mergers and acquisitions; value, negotiation, deal structuring, corporate strategy and valued added, financing, and tax consequences. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Ballantine

FIN 233f Relative Values of Securities
Prerequisites: FIN 212a or FIN 216f strongly recommended. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Introduces students to the issues and analysis necessary for making the decision to purchase securities. The principal focus is on publicly traded securities. Debt and equity security values will be addressed. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Aikens

FIN 234a Capital Budgeting
Prerequisite: FIN 202a (may be taken concurrently).
Companies make long term investments to increase the value of the company. Often these investments are in long term assets (new plants, new product development), but sometimes the investment may involve the acquisition of another business or company. Significant strategic expenditure programs, such as R&D and marketing, which may not appear on the balance sheet, may also be thought of in this way. The purpose of this course is both to deepen the students' understanding of and ability to apply analytical tools to make informed financial recommendations to management and boards of directors and to consider these analyses in a variety of industries and contexts. The case method will be used as the main teaching approach and will call upon students to consider a range of factors as they assume the role of a senior financial officer in a corporation. The course might alternatively be called Corporate Financial Decision Making. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Lewis

FIN 234f Corporate Financial Decision Making
Prerequisite: FIN 202a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit. May not be taken for credit by students who take FIN 234a.
Capital budgeting involves assessing business opportunities/investments, preparing cash flow forecasts, and comparing the returns of these investments. This course employs criteria such as NPV, IRR and APV to explore investment decisions described in articles, textbook readings, and cases. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Canella

FIN 235a Investing in Energy: Fossil Fuels to Cleaner Energy
May not be taken for credit by students who took FIN 235f in spring 2008.
How do energy companies and investors make investment decisions in our current economic/political environment? How do investors assess the risks and the long term opportunities, and what are the potential returns? And how do companies manage energy projects and implement new technologies across many markets and countries? To evaluate energy investments students need to acquire the background knowledge, the technical skills, and an appreciation of the politics of energy policy. This course will establish a broad framework of analysis and it will also let students analyze the economic viability of a specific energy project. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Ballantine

FIN 236f Technical Analysis
Prerequisite: FIN 201a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
From FX to equity indexes to real estate futures markets, traders rely on technically-derived signals to enter speculative positions, set protective orders, and time their exits. Provides an introduction to technical analysis and familiarizes students with strategies in common use. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Kirkpatrick

FIN 241f Financial Planning and Control
Prerequisite: FIN 202a (may be taken concurrently).
Examines financial planning methodologies and tools as well as financial control mechanisms. Includes case studies using real-life examples, accounting, and financial objectives. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Canella

FIN 242f Credit Risk Analysis
Prerequisite: FIN 212a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Examines credit risk (i.e., the possibility that an obligor will fail to perform as agreed) from the perspective of the commercial banker. Focuses on a sound understanding of the firm and its business plan and how the banker constructs the appropriate structure for the senior loan. Topics include asset-based, real estate, and cash flow lending. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Bayone

FIN 244f Credit Risk Analysis II
Prerequisite: FIN 242f. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Examines credit risk (i.e., the possibility that an obligor will fail to perform as agreed) for foreign companies that largely operate in their overseas markets. Based on a sound understanding of the firm, its business plan, and the environment in which it operates, the banker constructs the appropriate structure for the senior loan. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Bayone

FIN 245f Off Balance Sheet Finance
Prerequisite: FIN 202a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Delves deeply into the various mechanisms and vehicles that corporations use to finance operations and ventures outside of their balance sheet. Topics include leasing, venture leasing, and Special Purpose Entities (SPEs), among others.
Mr. Canella

FIN 246a Applied Corporate Finance
Prerequisites: FIN 202a and 212a.
Explores the application of core finance disciplines to real-world situations. Students who take this course should have completed course work or have actual knowledge of managerial accounting, financial management and control, valuation, M&A, strategic marketing, financial forecasting, etc. Additionally, students should be near graduation and preparing for a career in a private sector firm. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Aikens

FIN 247f Commercial Bankruptcy: Creditor Relationships in the U.S.
Prerequisites: FIN 202a (may be taken concurrently) and 212a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Focuses on the relationship between debtors and creditors in a deteriorating financial environment, through lectures and case studies. Explores how U.S. courts work, jurisdictional issues that impact debtor/creditor relationships, the importance of advocacy, the relationship between state and federal law, and the hierarchy of creditor claims. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Aikens

FIN 248a Financial Strategies
Prerequisites: FIN 201a and FIN 202a.
Focuses on the techniques used by financial practitioners to understand and then enhance shareholder value. Students taking the course will improve their skills in financial statement analysis, analyze alternative methods of valuation analysis, and examine an array of asset and liability restructuring techniques used by corporate managers and investment bankers to boost shareholder value. Usually offered every year; not offered 2010-2011.
Staff

FIN 250f Financial Forecasting
Prerequisite: ECON 210f or equivalent. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Covers some of the basics of financial time series analysis with a special emphasis on forecasting. Basic time series skills are covered, drawing many examples from finance. These include linear regression, ARMA models, trend modeling, and vector autoregressions. We also cover more unusual topics such as bootstrapping and technical trading rules. Usually offered every year.
Mr. LeBaron

FIN 253f The Current Financial Crisis: Winners and Losers
Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Examines the winners and losers in the current crisis in three sectors of the financial services industry: investment banks, depository institutions, and asset management firms. The final project will be an analysis of Citigroup--winner or loser? Usually offered every year; not offered in 2010-2011.
Staff

FIN 254f Financial Manias and Crises
Prerequisite: FIN 201a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Class investigates speculative financial manias--their causes, characteristics, effects, and policy responses. Using historical and recent examples from the United States and abroad, the psychological aspects of markets and other factors that contribute to manias are examined.
Staff

FIN 255a World Financial Centers
Prerequisite: A knowledge of financial theory is highly desirable. Intended primarily for MSF students, but MAief and MBA students with appropriate background knowledge in finance may also apply. Consult the program administrator for details regarding special costs and meeting times. May be repeated once for credit in a different center.
Meets each summer in a financial center of global significance. Provides analysis of international financial markets, institutions, and regulatory systems in the host center. Explores their relationship with global financial trends and systems. Includes examining the microstructure of markets, equity trading, futures and options, mergers and acquisitions, banking and currencies, and regional issues of topical interest. Usually offered every summer and run in collaboration with overseas academic partner.
Mr. Ballantine and Mr. Sherrington

FIN 255f World Financial Centers
Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit. Open only to students who completed FIN 255a in a prior semester.
Meets each summer in a financial center of global significance. Provides analysis of international financial markets, institutions, and regulatory systems in the host center. Explores their relationship with global financial trends and systems. Includes examining the microstructure of markets, equity trading, futures and options, mergers and acquisitions, banking and currencies, and regional issues of topical interest. Usually offered every summer and run in collaboration with overseas academic partner.
Mr. Sherrington

FIN 258a Introduction to Quantitative Finance
Prerequisite: Open to IBS students only.
Covers at a fairly rigorous level much of the mathematics needed for finance applications encountered in an investment finance career (e.g., security analysis, portfolio management, trading, investment banking) and prepares students for more advanced courses in quantitative finance. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Reitano

FIN 261a Fixed Income Securities
Prerequisites: FIN 201a or FIN 205a, or permission of the instructor.
Studies fixed income securities; cash flow structures, pricing risk measures; features of major fixed income sectors; valuation of fixed income securities with embedded options; portfolio management and performance measurement; interest rate derivatives and applications to asset/liability management. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Raviv

FIN 263a International Portfolio Management
Prerequisite: FIN 201a or FIN 205a. May not be taken for credit by students who have taken FIN 262a in previous years.
A blend of advanced theory and state-of-the-art practice with a two fold aim: to ground students in the theory of international portfolio investments and to immerse them in the application of global portfolio management in the real world. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Raviv

FIN 266f Hedge Fund Management
Prerequisite: FIN 201a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
Covers the historical evolution of hedge funds, analyzes the regulatory government, and considers key issues in the "hedge fund universe," such as price versus value, risk versus volatility. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FIN 270a Options and Derivatives
Prerequisites: FIN 201a, or FIN 205a, or permission of the instructor.
Introduces students, at a reasonable mathematical level, to a broad range of topics related to the securities, markets, pricing, and applications of financial derivatives. Special focus is placed on how financial arbitrage is used to price derivatives. Usually offered every semester.
Mr. Reitano or Ms. Becker

FIN 271a Options & Derivatives II
Prerequisites: FIN 270a and courses or experience in statistics, calculus, and programming.
Explores in some detail the mathematics of pricing financial derivatives on equities and other tradable securities, with particular emphasis on the various discrete computational methods and their convergence properties. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Reitano

FIN 279a Applied Risk Management
Prerequisites: FIN 201a, or FIN 205a and FIN 212a.
Studies risk management applications as well as the use of financial derivatives. Focuses on case studies and can be taken in addition to the more quantitative course, FIN 280a. Students are expected to work through examples and develop strategies. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Reitano

FIN 280a Financial Risk Management
Prerequisite: FIN 201a, or FIN 205a.
Introduces many of the approaches financial institutions take to model, quantify, and manage risk. Types of risk covered include financial (equity, interest rate, and credit), as well as operational. Students will be expected to have some exposure to financial derivatives from FIN 201a or 301a as well as to the basic concepts from calculus and statistics. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Reitano

FIN 282f Real Options in Decision-Making
Prerequisite: FIN 202a. Corequisite: FIN 217f and FIN 270a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit. This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken FIN 282a in previous years.
Combines traditional valuation with options valuations, using Black-Scholes. When firms accelerate, decay, or invest in parts of a project, with more investment to be evaluated later, the firm's value can change, and is measurable as an option price. Usually offered every year; not offered in 2010-2011.
Mr. Canella

FIN 285a Computer Simulations and Risk Assessment
Prerequisite: FIN 201a.
Examines recent advances in computational methods for evaluation risk and decision making in risky situations. Emphasizes a common computational framework for solving many problems from business, finance, and economics using statistical methods, such as Monte Carlo and resampling. Usually offered every year.
Mr. LeBaron

FIN 297a Internship
Prerequisite: Two semesters at IBS or permission of program director. Yields half course-credit. May not be repeated for credit.
Offers students an opportunity to apply the theories and key themes covered in the core courses in a real-life setting. Requires completion of at least six weeks of a paid or unpaid internship approved and monitored by a faculty advisor. The project could involve a research or consulting assignment or a structured internship in the school's fields. Interested students should consult the guidelines established by the school. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FIN 297g Internship
Prerequisite: Two semesters at IBS or permission of program director. Yields quarter course-credit. May be repeated twice for credit.
Offers students an opportunity to apply the theories and key themes covered in the core courses in a real-life setting. Requires completion of at least six weeks of a paid or unpaid internship approved and monitored by a faculty advisor. The project could involve a research or consulting assignment or a structured internship in the school's fields. Interested students should consult the guidelines established by the school. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FIN 298a Independent Study
Normally available for a student who wishes to pursue advanced reading or research in a subject or field not available in the department's course listings. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FIN 298b Independent Study
Course yields half-course credit.
Normally available for a student who wishes to pursue advanced reading on research in a subject or field not available in the department's course listings. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FIN 299a Master's Project
Prerequisite: Two semesters at IBS or permission of program director.
A student wishing to complete a master's project under the guidance of a faculty advisor may enroll in this course during his or her final semester in the master's program. Projects may involve a short analytical thesis, the solution of an applied problem, or a report on work completed in an appropriate internship. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FIN 305f Asset Pricing
Prerequisite: ECON 301a. Meets for one-half semester and yields half-course credit.
A course in asset pricing for PhD candidates. Topics include risk aversion and choice under uncertainty, no arbitrage and stochastic discount factor, mean variance analysis, factor models, and recent empirical puzzles. Focuses on theory and empirical applications. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hilscher