This course is designed to introduce students to the principles and application of diverse financial decision-making tools and techniques, as well as the statistical methods employed both directly in solving financial problems and as foundational elements for advanced statistical models and analysis. Aligned with the CFA Program Candidate Body of Knowledge (Quantitative Methods area) from the CFA Institute. These topics include the time value of money, organization, visualization, and description of data, probability, probability distributions, sampling and estimation, hypothesis testing, and linear regression analysis. The overall aim of this course is to equip students with a robust understanding of statistical methodologies relevant to the financial domain.

This course focuses on the source, nature, and interpretation of accounting information; the analysis of financial data; the role of ethics in finance and accounting; and the impact of technology on accounting and financial information. Students will develop a better understanding of complex accounting topics, including equity transactions and cash flow statements. Students will utilize key financial features in Excel  and will evaluate a company’s financial performance based on its financial statements and related disclosures.

This course aims to provide students with a robust understanding of the theoretical foundations and logical frameworks within financial economics. Students will explore standard economic models that studies the behaviors of consumers and producers in financial settings, exploring the consequential impact on resource allocation and market efficiency. The course will also scrutinize fundamental economic tools, including optimization, comparative statics, and equilibrium, emphasizing their direct application to financial contexts. Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on how economic tools can be adeptly applied to address challenges in both financial and business domains. By the end of the course, students will have developed a strong comprehension of the theoretical underpinnings of financial economics and the practical skills to navigate financial decision-making.

This course covers the major classes of derivative securities: forward contracts, futures contracts, options, and swaps. A derivative security is a financial security whose value depends on (or derives from) other more fundamental underlying financial variables, such as the price of a stock, an interest rate, an index level, a commodity price, or an exchange rate. Derivatives can be used to hedge or obtain insurance against existing risk exposures; however, derivatives do not offer a panacea in managing risk. Prerequisite: FIN 678.

This course is intended for graduate students who expect at some point in their careers to use financial statements to evaluate earnings quality, performance, prospects, and value of a business. The primary emphasis will be on the analysis of public companies, but most of the tools and techniques utilized are also relevant to private firms’ financial analysis. This course focuses on the fundamental analysis of valuation, with a focus on developing and applying methods for valuing firms using financial statement analysis.

This course teaches students to create more in-depth news reports for various forms of media. Students will utilize research and evaluation skills learned in previous courses to produce investigative news reports suited for real-world publications. Prerequisite: JRN 301.

This course is an examination of global socioeconomic development in the context of globalization. Topics include population growth, natural resources, sustainable growth, migration, diplomacy, and the global consequences of inequality, poverty, and war. These topics are examined through the lens of social expectations, gender ideals, and economic justice.