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| FINA0068-1 | Applied Financial Instruments
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| Duration : | 45h Th |
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| Number of credits : |
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| Lecturer : | Marie Lambert, Aline Muller |
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| Coordinator : | N... |
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Language(s) of instruction :
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| English language |
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Organisation and examination :
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| Teaching in the second semester |
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Course contents :
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| The 'Applied Financial Instruments' course provides an introduction to empirical methods that play an important role in finance and management. We will go over selected topics in asset pricing (Capital Asset Pricing Model, portfolio theory and domestic/international diversification, event study analysis,...), management decision-making (discounted cash flow method, project Net Present Value and investment decisions, bond pricing, asset and liability management, firm valuation, decision trees, ...) and related fields.
The course will be conducted in an interactive fashion. A topic will be selected for each session. The methodological framework will be outlined and we will accompany participants' first steps in the empirical implementation of the solution. |
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Learning outcomes of the course :
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| The course provides students with a deep understanding of management disciplines such as corporate finance and market finance. Through the assigned problem sets, students will develop their analytical and modelling skills in finance as well as strengthen their communication skills in English. Especially, students will improve their skills in empirical analysis - skills and competences that will turn out to be crucial not only for the group and individual tasks they will have to deliver during their master studies but as well for the empirical work of their master thesis.
This course contributes to the following Intended Learning Outcomes :
ILO-6: being able to use accounting, mathematical, statistical and IT tools to solve a management problem
ILO-7: being able to conduct research autonomously and methodically to obtain the information needed to solve this problem using a critical approach
ILO-5: being able to speak 2 foreign languages at advanced levels: C1 in English and B1/B2 in another language
ILO-9 : being able to work within a team
ILO-13: being able to communicate orally |
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Prerequisites and co-requisites/ Recommended optional programme components :
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| Basics of financial markets and financial mathematics
Students who need to acquire the prerequisites are invited to read the following chapters:
- Accounting statements and cash flows: working knowledge of key financial statements, i.e. income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. Please read Chapters 2 and 3 - Ross, Westerfield and Jaffe. 2008. Corporate Finance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 8th edition;
- Basics in capital budgeting: working knowledge of discounting/compounding. Please read Chapter 4 - Ross, Westerfield and Jaffe. 2008. Corporate Finance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 8th edition. |
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Planned learning activities and teaching methods :
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| The course is structured with two lectures per week: 2.5 hours lecture (including students' presentation) on Tuesdays, and 2 hours technical tutorial class on Fridays.
Each pair of sessions will be devoted to the methodological framework typically used to analyze a central question in finance and management. The goal is not to provide an exhaustive survey or coverage of empirical methods in finance and management. Instead, we will focus on understanding why a particular empirical methodology has been chosen, why is it best adapted to the problem at hand, and how is it used in practice.
Participants will be expected to make a presentation outlining the empirical issues and the solutions proposed. This should train participants to collect data and, most importantly, to focus on the practical use of two major softwares (Excel and Eviews). |
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Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning) :
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| Face-to-face lectures are designed to transfer the fundamental concepts in corporate finance and market finance. Technical tutorials enable students to apply the tools acquired during the class on key financial problems. |
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Recommended or required readings :
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| Book chapters and scientific articles will be announced during the class.
For Part I (Applied tools in Corporate Finance with M. Lambert), the recommended textbooks are:
Ross, Westerfield and Jaffe. 2008. Corporate Finance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 8th edition. (for fundamentals of discounting/compounding, NPV criterion, bond pricing, valuation and capital budgeting and decision tree analysis)
Esch, Kieffer, Lopez. 2005. Asset and Risk Management: Risk Oriented Finance. Wiley (for bond valuation) |
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Assessment methods and criteria :
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| The students' modeling skills and their ability to solve a complex problem in financial management will be tested on a continuous basis : group work will weight for 40% of their continuous evaluation and students will receive an individual grade of 20% for their individual participation to case study presentations.
An oral exam (40%) will assess the understanding of the financial theories and principles seen during the class as well as the students' analytical decomposition of a financial problem. |
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Work placement(s) :
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Organizational remarks :
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Contacts :
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| Aline Muller, Ph.D. | Ethias Chair in Asset & Risk Management | Professor of Finance
HEC - Management School of the University of Liège (Belgium) & Maastricht University (The Netherlands)
Rue Saint Gilles 35, Bldg. N2, B-4000 Liège Belgium
tel : 0032 4 232 7435 / fax: 0032 4 232 7376 / email : aline.muller@ulg.ac.be / website: www.finance.hec.ulg.ac.be
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Marie Lambert, Ph.D. | BNP Paribas Chair in Corporate Finance |Assistant Professor | Corporate Finance and Financial Analysis | HEC-Management School of the University of Liège |
Rue Louvrex 14, Bldg. N1, B-4000 Liège | Belgium
Phone: +32 4 232 74 32 / email : marie.lambert@ulg.ac.be
Tutor : Joachim Davoli - joachim.davoli@ulg.ac.be |
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| Items online : |
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| online notes |
Lecture notes will be available on the course web page. Other items such as problem sets will also be available on the course web page. Some additional readings on materials related to the course over the term may be provided throughout the course via the course web page.
Please refer to LOLA to access the course web page. |
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