BUS-F303: INTERMEDIATE INVESTMENTS
Spring 2018
Wenyu Wang
SYLLABUS
Office:
HH6153
Class Location:
HH3000
Final Exam:
TBA
Office Hours:
Thursday 3:00
–
4:30 PM
Email:
[email protected]
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Welcome to
Intermediate Investments
, your first step into a future investment career! There are two
major goals for this course: 1. Understand the structure of modern investment industry and its role in the
economy; 2. Master important statistical skills that are currently used in real world investment research.
In detail, we will first get a satellite view of the investment business. Then we are going to cover three
categories of investment instruments: Equity, Debt, and Derivatives. Along the way we will get hands on
several useful statistical/econometric methods and learn from the real financial market. The knowledge
and skills covered in this course will help you in both professional career and further study in graduate
school.
RECOMMENDED TEXTBOOK
The only
recommended
textbook is “
Essentials of
Investments” by Bodie, Kane and Marcus, 9
th
edition
(or more recent). It is an excellent intermediate level textbook for learning investment. It also provides
materials related to the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) tests. Therefore, you may consider it as a good
investment not only for this course, but also for your future career in finance. The book is
not
required
though, as we will have our own lecture notes (developed from this textbook).
CLASS PARTICIPATION
Class participation is required. Throughout the semester, I will call around 3-5 students per class. You
might be asked to comment on the investment recommendation, answer lecture note questions, or help us
summarize and review contents learned from the last lecture. On average, you will be called 3 times
during the semester. In a given class, your chances of being cold called are around 10-15%.
I will grade each answer from 0 to 5 and your class participation will be based on the average grade of
your answers. You get zero if you are called and you are not in the classroom. If you plan to miss the
class, email me before the class and I can take you off the cold call list. You can at most do this 2 times.
After you miss 2 classes, you will be always on the cold call list. Throughout the semester, you can also
earn your participation grade by volunteering to answer questions in class.
