Master of Finance

MGT 506 Managerial Economics
This course introduces managers to the essence of business economics — the theories, concepts and ideas that form the economist’s tool kit. Microeconomic topics include demand and supply, elasticity, consumer choice, production, cost, profit maximization, market structure, and game theory; macroeconomic topics will be GDP, inflation, unemployment, aggregate demand, aggregate supply, and fiscal and monetary policies. In addition, basic concepts in international trade and finance will be discussed.

MGT 700 Econometrics
An introduction to the science of designing statistical models of economic processes. Students will be required to build and estimate a number of models during the term. Topics include regression theory, statistical difficulties in regression analysis, advanced topics in single-equation regression, models of qualitative choice and simultaneous equation estimation. Prerequisites: MGT 503

FIN 629 Fixed Income Analysis
This course addresses money flows and the cost of credit for major money market institutions, including banks, bank holding companies and the “shadow banking” system. It entails a broad survey of the structure and financial condition of the banking industry. The course provides a theoretical and practical understanding of why these markets exist and who the key players are, how the markets work, the rules governing their operation, and how they are evolving. We will spend considerable time in discussing regulation of the financial markets and financial services industry.

FIN 627 Investment Management
This course takes a practical approach to managing investments. It covers a wide variety of investment vehicles, from pure equity and debt offerings to complex derivatives and options. Various investment strategies are presented which are focused on the different fundamental approaches and tactics used by leading investors to achieve their financial goals. The course also focuses on investment styles, including momentum, growth, income, distressed, asset allocation and vulture investing. Students participate in real-time simulation experiences to create viable portfolios of stocks, bonds and other investments, tracking their performance against the overall market and the class on a weekly basis.

FIN 638 Corporate Finance
This course serves as a second semester sequence in corporate finance. Among the topics covered are: leverage on the balance sheet and weighted average cost of capital; bankruptcy, turnarounds, and recapitalizations; international currency hedging; stock options; private equity valuation; mergers and acquisitions; and the issuance of public and private securities.

FIN 510 Financial Statement Analysis
This course deals with interpretation of financial statements, evaluation of the alignment between business strategies and financial performance, identification of potential business risks, and comparison of the performance of different companies. The course introduces business analysis and valuation techniques and uses real data to help students comprehend financial statement analysis tools. 

FIN 628 Derivatives
This course covers the fundamentals of financial derivatives, including the basic properties and pricing of futures, options and swaps. It also explores trading and hedging strategies involving financial derivatives. Special topics, such as exotic options and credit derivatives, are explored. The course provides the foundation of financial derivatives and lays the ground for a rigorous risk management course and other advanced quantitative courses, such as stochastic finance.

FE 511 Introduction to Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters
The focus of this course will be on equity, futures, FX, options, swaps, CDSs, interest rate swaps and so on. As part of the course, students become Bloomberg certified. The course also covers the Thomson Reuters Tick History data.

FE 515 Introduction to R
Upon completion of this course, students will understand the programming syntax of R, and should be able to use it in future courses.
Upon completion of this course, students will understand the programming syntax of R, and should be able to use it in future courses.

FE 517 SAS for Finance
This course teaches the basics of SAS programming using financial data and applications. The course provides an introduction to programming, graphics and data analysis using SAS software. The course concentrates on fundamental components of SAS: data processing; managing SAS libraries; graphical and statistical procedures; and creating, formatting and exporting reports.

FE 520 Introduction to Python for Financial Applications
This course covers the basis syntax rules, modules, importing packages, data visualization and introduction to machine learning on Python. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to complete a simple project with Python.

Foundational courses are intended for students who do not have training or prior coursework in accounting, finance and statistics. A course in business writing and communication is also required.

FIN 500 Financial and Managerial Accounting
This course will develop accounting analysis useful for managerial decision-making purposes. Topics will include an introduction to elements of financial accounting, cost-profit-volume analysis, manufacturing costs and elements of cost accounting, special decision analysis, budgeting, variances, and controllability and responsibility accounting.

FIN 523 Financial Management
This course covers the fundamental principles of finance. The primary concepts covered include the time value of money, principles of valuation and risk. Specific applications include the valuation of debt and equity securities as well as capital budgeting analysis, financial manager’s functions, liquidity vs. profitability, financial planning, capital budgeting, management of long term funds, money and capital markets, debt and equity, management of assets, cash and accounts receivable, inventory and fixed assets.

MGT 506 Economics for Managers
This course introduces managers to the essence of business economics – the theories, concepts and ideas that form the economist’s tool kit encompassing both the microeconomic and macroeconomic environments. Microeconomic topics include demand and supply, elasticity, consumer choice, production, cost, profit maximization, market structure, and game theory while the Macroeconomic topics will be GDP, inflation, unemployment, aggregate demand, aggregate supply, fiscal and monetary policies. In addition the basic concepts in international trade and finance will be discussed.

FIN 530 Investment Banking
The course provides an overview of Investment Banking both from a transactional and regulatory perspective. Students will explore the structure of global markets, players, risks, motives and opportunities that make transactions happen and study lessons learned from remarkably successful stories and spectacular failures. The instructor will provide various case studies to help students understand market dynamics, transaction complexities, governance and approvals, deal sourcing - origination, due diligence, pricing, distribution as well as regulatory compliance and supervision of investment banks.

FIN 620 Advanced Financial Econometrics
This course introduces the main concepts of data analysis and econometrics applied to financial problems. The course explores data analysis techniques; time series models; and multivariate, factor and Bayesian models, which are applied to high-frequency trading, volatility forecasting, risk management, portfolio optimization and asset pricing. Students will work with historical databases, conduct their own analysis, and test trading and investment strategies based on the techniques reviewed during the class. Prerequisite: BIA 652 or MGT 700

FIN 688 Mergers, Acquisitions and Other Corporate Restructuring
This course develops the “architecture and science” of optimal strategic decision-making by building upon the basic corporate financial theory to cases of financial policies like initial public offering, debt issuance, seasoned equity offers. This course analyzes investments decisions like merger and acquisition, and divestitures decisions like spinoffs and carve-outs. corporate bankruptcy and restructuring, and other advanced models of corporate valuation. The classes are structured to maximize the synergy between advanced topics in corporate finance theory and case-based practical applications, providing students with portable, durable and marketable tools for their careers.

FIN 626 Venture Capital and Private Equity
This course addresses the fundamentals of venture capital, which includes the venture capital industry, the structure of venture capital firms and venture capital investments. It addresses in some detail the relationship between venture risk and return, the cost of venture capital, and the valuation of high-growth companies. The course covers a variety of valuation methods as well as analysis of company capital structure.

FIN 648 International Finance
The course covers a sequence of important topics such as the fundamentals of international financial management, the financial environment in which the multinational firm and its managers must function, and foreign exchange management and financial management in a multinational firm. Since the courses specifically addresses the financial management aspect of international business, considerable attentive will be directed to specific issues of international finance such as foreign exchange markets, managing exchange rate risk and various other risk management issues.

FIN 620 Advanced Financial Econometrics
This course introduces the main concepts of data analysis and econometrics applied to financial problems. The course explores data analysis techniques; time series models; and multivariate, factor and Bayesian models, which are applied to high-frequency trading, volatility forecasting, risk management, portfolio optimization and asset pricing. Students will work with historical databases, conduct their own analysis, and test trading and investment strategies based on the techniques reviewed during the class. Prerequisite: BIA 652 or MGT 700. > Full description

FA 631 Investment, Portfolio Construction and Trading Analytics
This course explores how to apply fundamental machine learning models to predict financial time series and solve financial problems. Some of the financial applications explored are algorithmic trading, model calibration, portfolio optimization and risk management.Prerequisites: Any of BIA 656, FE 590, FE 690, MIS 637 or CS 559. > Full description

FA 636 Advanced Risk Analytics
The course begins with an overall introduction to risk models such as market, credit and operational risk, before moving to discuss volatility predictive models using time series analysis and machine learning. It will also discuss multivariate risk systems, copulas and shrinkage-based techniques for risk assessment. The second half of the course is mostly dedicated to credit risk management, including the use of predictive analytics to develop early warning systems for corporate credit risk. Prerequisites: FE 535 or QF435; FE 515 or FE 520; and FE 590 or BIA 656. > Full description

You may also choose one of the following:

BIA 656 Advanced Data Analytics and Machine Learning
This course introduces time series and statistical and graphical models used for inference and prediction. The emphasis of the course is in the learning capability of the algorithms and their application to finance, direct marketing, operations and biomedicine. Students should have a basic knowledge of probability theory and linear algebra.

FE 590 Statistical Learning in Finance
This course provides an applied overview of both classical linear approaches to statistical learning and more modern statistical methods. The classical linear approaches will include logistic regression, linear discriminant analysis, k-means clustering and nearest neighbors. The more modern approaches will include generalized additive models, decision trees, boosting, bagging, support vector machines and others.

Choose any four of the following.

FIN 620 Advanced Financial Econometrics
This course introduces the main concepts of data analysis and econometrics applied to financial problems. The course explores data analysis techniques; time series models; and multivariate, factor and Bayesian models, which are applied to high-frequency trading, volatility forecasting, risk management, portfolio optimization and asset pricing. Students will work with historical databases, conduct their own analysis, and test trading and investment strategies based on the techniques reviewed during the class.Prerequisite: BIA 652 or MGT 700. > Full description

FIN 658 Wealth Management Principles and Practices
This is a course on the theory and practice of wealth management. It covers the building blocks and fundamental theoretical and practical aspects of investment management and financial planning for individual investors as well as applications that put the former to use by practitioners in the industry. Students will be exposed to some of the information, tools, and analysis available to investment management professionals today. > Full description

FIN 550 Financial Planning and Risk Management
This course will review the fundamental principles of financial planning, professional conduct, education planning, risk management and regulation. The course is aligned with the principle knowledge topics evaluated on the CFP exam. The course introduces you to the financial planning process and teaches you how to work with clients to set goals and assess risk tolerance. Learn how to process and analyze information, construct personal financial statements, develop debt management plans, recommend financing strategies, and understand the basic components of a written comprehensive financial plan. > Full description

FA 631 Investment, Portfolio Construction and Trading Analytics
This course explores how to apply fundamental machine learning models to predict financial time series and solve financial problems. Some of the financial applications explored are algorithmic trading, model calibration, portfolio optimization and risk management.Prerequisites: Any of BIA 656, FE 590, FE 690, MIS 637 or CS 559. > Full description

FIN 555 Retirement and Estate Planning
This course introduces students to the principles of retirement and estate planning as well as current issues in these areas. The course is designed to enable students to understand and be conversant with the basic language of retirement and estate planning, and to understand the pertinent provisions of the US Internal Revenue Code related to these topics. > Full description

FIN 555 Retirement and Estate Planning
This course introduces students to the principles of retirement and estate planning as well as current issues in these areas. The course is designed to enable students to understand and be conversant with the basic language of retirement and estate planning, and to understand the pertinent provisions of the US Internal Revenue Code related to these topics. > Full description

FIN 550 Financial Planning and Risk Management
This course will review the fundamental principles of financial planning, professional conduct, education planning, risk management and regulation. The course is aligned with the principle knowledge topics evaluated on the CFP exam. The course introduces you to the financial planning process and teaches you how to work with clients to set goals and assess risk tolerance. Learn how to process and analyze information, construct personal financial statements, develop debt management plans, recommend financing strategies, and understand the basic components of a written comprehensive financial plan. > Full description

FIN 565 Financial Plan Development
This course integrates the different aspects of the financial planning process and demonstrates how to apply this knowledge to the development of a comprehensive financial plan. Students learn how to solve the main problems related to the financial planning process: cash management, debt management, taxation, insurance, retirement, investment, portfolio optimization and estate planning. At the end of the course, students should be able to construct a plan according to the CFP Board’s Financial Planning Practice Standards and client objectives.Prerequisites: FIN 550, ACC 555 and FIN 560 > Full description

FIN 560 Federal Taxation of Individuals
This course will review the fundamental principles of financial planning, professional conduct, education planning, risk management and regulation. The course is aligned with the principle knowledge topics evaluated on the CFP Certification Examination. The course introduces you to the financial planning process and teaches you how to work with clients to set goals and assess risk tolerance. Learn how to process and analyze information, construct personal financial statements, develop debt management plans, recommend financing strategies and understand the basic components of a written comprehensive financial plan. > Full description