The course content addresses the following topics:
- Introduction to finance
- Financial ratio analysis
- The time value of money discounting, the valuation of fixed income securities, and shares
- Assets and liability management
- Capital budgeting: cash flow forecasts, alternative methods of investment appraisal, project interaction, capital rationing, risk and return, project analysis, the evaluation of forecasts, and performance
- Corporate financing decision: efficient markets, the dividend decision, capital structure, the cost of capital leasing
- Introduction to investment
- Calculating investment returns, the relationship between risk and reward, investment market dynamics
- The ""Money Market"": T-bills, bankers acceptances, deposits, certificates of deposit, the role of the central bank
- Bond market: market overflow, gilts, corporate bonds, junk bonds
- Equity: market overview, dividend discount model, fundamental analysis, technical analysis
- Derivatives: interest rate futures, equity futures, arbitrage with the spot market, interest rate options, equity options, arbitrage between spot, futures and options, option valuation, option algebra, calculating option exposure, hedging.
- Introduction to portfolio theories: Efficient Markets Hypotheses, Capital Asset Pricing Model, Arbitrage Pricing Theory
- Investment overview: the measurement of investment performance
- The role of investment markets in the economy"