Formula Sheet
Bus Day
Feb 17!
Schedule
Ch 1
Ch 2
Ch 3
Ch 4
Ch 5a
Excel 1
Ch 5b
(new 2/18!!)
Ch 6
Ch 7
Ch 8
Ch 9
Ch 13
Ch 17
Excel3
Excel 2
Exercises
LE 1
LE 2
LE 3
LE 4
LE 5
LE 6
LE 7
| Instructor: John Elder Phone/Office: 970-491-2952; Rockwell 329 E-mail: john.elder@colostate.edu Web: http://lamar.colostate.edu/~jelder/ |
Course: FIN 310; 1/19/09-5/09/09 Meeting: MW 11:00-12:15; Rock 172 Prereq: ECON 204 Office Hr: M 2:45-3:45; W 1-3; after class, by appt |
Financial Markets and Institutions - Overview
Welcome to this course on Financial Markets! This introductory course provides an overview of financial markets and the financial institutions that operate in these markets. The includes bond markets, stock markets, mortgage markets and, very breifly, derivative markets. Financial institutions include the Federal Reserve, banks, thrifts, finance companies, insurance companies and investment banks. Since this course provides a broad overview of these institutions and markets, much of the matarial is organized as a collection of facts, rather than as theories or mathematical models.
If you have any problems with this class, please see or e-mail me. I am always available after class and during posted office hours, but feel welcome to email or call me at the office anytime. I am at the office everyday (plus some weekends and evenings), unless I have another class, appointment or meeting. You may also submit concerns and suggestions to me anonymously via a feedback form in RAMCT. You should know that I take seriously my obligation to provide students a classroom experience that promotes and facilitates learning.
Course Objectives
Students completing this class will be conversant in current economic and financial events and will be able to do the following:
(1) describe the types of instruments traded in financial markets and the markets in which they trade. The instruments include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, foriegn exchange and derivative securities (such as options and futures).
(2) access firm level stock and bond data via the web;
(3) value debt securities (bonds) utilizing discounted cash flow models;
(4) describe the operation of major financial institutions, such as the Federal Reserve, depository institutions and insurance companies.
(5) describe basic characteristics of derivative securities.
(6) be proficient in the use of Excel's basic mathematical, financial, data manipulation and graphing functions.
Course materials
The materials you will need for this course are:
-Kidwell, Blackwell, et al., Financial Institutions, Markets and Money, 10th ed, McGraw-Hill Irwin. Students often ask if they can use a different edition of the textbook. My response is that you can, but you are responsible for the material in this edition. In practice, it is very difficult to sort out the new material from the old, as page numbers and chapter numbers change.
-Current periodical, such as the Wall Street Journal (sign up on-line here).
-Financial Calculator - either a Texas Instruments BA II+ or Hewlett Packard 10BII.
The textbook is comprehensive and easy to read. The student companion web site (currently here) has some additional student resources, such as a study guide, study questions, etc. If you are intersted in books for popular audiences about recent events in the financial markets, you might try reading In Fed We Trust by David Wessel; or How I Caused the Credit Crunch by Tetsuya Ishikawa.
Course Requirements:
1. If you do miss class, please be sure to retrieve notes and announcements from a classmate.
2. For assignments to be handed in, essays must be typed, multiple pages stapled, and late assignments cannot be accepted.
3. All work in this course must be completed in a manner consistent with CSU’s Policy on Academic Integrity (http://catalog.colostate.edu/front/policies.aspx) and the Student Code of Conduct (http://www.conflictresolution.colostate.edu/conduct-code.aspx). Please note that the university's policies provides for a designation of “academic dishonesty” on a student’s transcript for a serious offense.
4. Any students with disabilities or other special needs, who need special accommodations in this course are invited to share these concerns or requests with the instructor as soon as possible.
If you find these conditions unacceptable, you should contact me at the beginning of the semester to seek counsel. Continued enrollment indicates your acceptance of these conditions.
Exams (graded exams on which you may not collaborate with your colleagues)
There will be two midterm exams, and one cumulative final exam and several assignments and quizzes. Exams are not collaborative and must be completed on your own. Excuses to the exams are very rare, but would include a College sponsored excursion or extreme illness documented by a physician's note. If you are excused from an exam for such a purpose, your final exam will be reweighted to account for the missing score. All exams for both on campus and distance students will be graded according to specific criteria.
Learning Exercises (uncollected exercises on which you are encouraged to collaborate)
Being prepared for each class requires that you keep up with the readings and assignments on a timely basis. To encourage you to do so, there will be several "learning exercises," typically associated with each chapter in the text. (Learning exercises are similar to homework, but they are not collected. The learning exercises are designed for your benefit: to help create and reinforce your learning and hence enhance your performance on exams. I call them learning exercises, because if you do not work through them, you are less likely learn.) You should try to work through the exercises prior to looking at the solutions. To reiterate, learning exercises are not collected or graded.
Short Quizzes and Assignments (graded assessments on which you may not collaborate)
There will be several quizzes and short assignments throughout the term. The quizzes will be either announced or unannounced (typically announced) and they are typically very closely related to the specific "learning exercises" that have been suggested after each chapter.
One assignment will be to prepare a short, one or two paragraph summary of a news article related to finance or economics (e.g,. from Business Week or the WSJ), that you should be prepared to discuss in class (or discuss via RAMCT for distance students). Your discussion should be no more than 3 minutes (practice to be sure you finish within that limit) and your summary must be typed, include the reference to the original article and turned in to RAMCT on the day you present it. Be careful -- your summary must be in your own words.
There will also be several assignments explicitly utilizing spreadsheet software -- in particular Microsoft Excel.
Assignments and quizzes will be graded on a scale from 1 to 5. All assignment and quiz grades will be averaged to compute an average grade for "assignments and quizzes".
Grades
Letter grades will be determined by computing an average according to the weighting scheme below, where an average of 90+ is an "A"; 80-89 is a "B"; 70-79 is a "C"; 65-69 is a "D"; and below 65 is an "F". It is possible that a curve on the final average will be implemented, if appropriate. I reserve the rarely used right to administer plus and minus grades at my own judgement. In the rare event that you have questions regarding the grading of a midterm exam or assignment, you must see me before the final exam is administered. The weighting scheme is as follows:
Assignments & Quizzes 20%; Midterm I 25%; Midterm II 25% Final 30%.
Midterm Exam I: February 24 in class
Midterm Exam II: April 7 in class
Final Exam: May 11 11:20-1:20
CSU Business day Feb 17: More information will follow
Broad Course Outline (Please see the "Schedule" for detailed topics and updates.)
* Financial System - KBWP 1, 2, 3.
* Interest Rates and Bonds - KBWP 4, 5, 6.
* Financial Markets - KBWP 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
* Commercial Banks - KBWP 13, 14.
* Financial Institutions - KBWP 17, 18, 19.