CURRICULUM

MSF 8620: Investment Banking (3 credits)
A survey course in corporate finance with applications to investment banking. It develops an understanding of fundamental concepts and theories in finance and applies them to a wide range of practical business problems including those related to the financial services industry.

MSF 8612: Fixed Income Markets (3 credits)
Introduction to fixed income markets and securities. Techniques of valuation, interest rate determination and modeling, interest rate risk management, and bond portfolio management and strategies.

MSF 8640: Portfolio Theory and Application (3 credits)
A hands-on class where students manage real-dollar portfolios using various investment styles. Graduate students provide the operational management of the funds while undergraduates are the analysts. All students are members of the investment committee that makes all investment decisions. Each fund must be managed in compliance with its investment policy statement.

MSF 8615: Derivatives and Risk Management (3 credits)
A comprehensive introduction to the markets for options, forwards, futures, swaps, and other related derivative instruments. The course is designed to develop an understanding of how derivatives markets operate, how derivatives are priced, and how they are used.

MSF 8650: Professional Development Program I (0.5 credits)
Topics cover the many facets of the process of career decision-making and goal-setting process, and adopt the positive understanding that career planning is a lifelong process; students gain knowledge of how to articulate skills and talents in a way that employers value.

MSF 8647: Quant Method in Finance Using R (1 credit)

Elective credits

Students complete 12 elective credits. At least nine credits must be taken from Group I (MSF electives), with the option to take up to 12 credits in Group I.  Students can take up to 3 credits from Group II (non-MSF electives). Please see below for a sample of elective offerings. Please note that this sample list is neither comprehensive nor final, as non-MSF electives are subject to scheduling and availability through other graduate programs.

MSF 8651: Professional Development Program II (0.5 credits)
Topics cover the many facets of the process of career decision-making and goal-setting process, and adopt the positive understanding that career planning is a lifelong process; students gain knowledge of how to articulate skills and talents in a way that employers value.

MSF 8610: Financial Markets and Institutions (3 credits)
An advanced course that surveys the key topics and inter-relationships between financial markets, financial institutions and market microstructure design. Students apply the theories learned in this course to numerous problems facing today’s financial institutions and markets.

MSF 8626: Alternative Investments (3 credits)
This course exposes students to the growing market for investments in non-traditional asset classes such as private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, commodities, natural resources, and real estate. The course will examine the risk-return characteristics of alternative investments, their correlation with conventional asset classes, and their use within diversified portfolios. (not updated)

MSF 8641: Portfolio Theory and Application II (3 credits)
A hands-on class where students manage real-dollar portfolios using various investment styles. Graduate students provide the operational management of the funds while undergraduates are the analysts. All students are members of the investment committee that makes all investment decisions. Each fund must be managed in compliance with its investment policy statement. Restricted to MSF Students.

Quantitative Finance
The course provides a framework for understanding quantitative asset management by first overviewing pertinent quantitative equity research then by replicating and backtesting existing research insights to provide hands-on experience for financial model building, valuation and quantitative performance attribution. The class aims to develop student skills that are best suited for quantitative asset management, valuation and advisory, data analytics, risk management, and statistical arbitrage roles, while providing students with insights into the asset management industry landscape that are particularly relevant to quantitative equity researchers.

MBA 8139 Topic: Programming Business Model
This course is an introduction to programming that focuses on the design of computer applications, modern software engineering principles, object-oriented design and systems thinking. The course emphasizes good programming style with strong testing skills and the use of application programming interfaces to interact with real-time financial data. The course is explicitly designed for business students seeking to enhance analytical talents by developing stronger problem-solving skills, learning how to more easily manipulate data and gaining an appreciation for the integration of business systems. The Python programming language will be used.

MBA 8565: Business Risk Management (1.5 credits)
This course examines contemporary risk management frameworks, overviews common regulatory reporting requirements and provides practical insights on effective business risk management to help students navigate today's dynamic marketplace.

MBA 8350: Analyzing and Leveraging Data (3 credits)
The course begins with a review of descriptive statistics, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing. These tools will be extended into regression analysis geared towards analyzing large data sets in order to make informed business decisions.

MBA 8529 Programming in R 
The statistical programming language R is rapidly becoming the language of choice for business analysts due to its full array of software capabilities for data preparation, analysis, and graphical display. This course covers the fundamentals of the usage of R as a programming language, with emphasis on applications in business.  Students will learn how to use the software environment of R to efficiently source, manipulate and analyze data.

MBA 8530: International Business Management (3 credits)
Provides an overview of economic and cultural integration, trade problems, and tariff barriers, and highlights the conflicts anhd compromises between the executive policies and national objectives of various countries. Emphasis is on the development of marketing strategies and the problems concerning overseas investment and financing.

MBA 8444: Multinational Financial Management (1.5 credits)
Globalization and the multinational corporation; foreign direct investment and political risk; international parity conditions; foreign exchange market; currency derivatives market; foreign exchange risk management; foreign trade financing; managing the multinational financial system.