Derivatives

Successful investing requires more than just picking stocks and bonds given the wide array of products at a portfolio manager's disposal. Through a combination of lectures, guest speakers and a final project, this course is intended to provide firsthand experience on how products like Options, Futures, Swaps, ETFs, Structured Notes, and Convertible Bonds are structured, valued, and used by all types of investors globally. Although the majority of the course relates to Equities, there will be a few classes on Fixed Income, Commodities, Currency and Credit Derivatives. The course is designed from both the perspective of a practitioner who has to account for the real costs of trading derivatives and how the derivative can improve the return and/or reduce the risk of his/her portfolio. The course is broken into the following sections: - Products - The course starts with a discussion of ”Delta 1” Derivatives like Exchange Traded Funds, Futures, and Swaps. These products trade dollar for dollar with the underlying security. We then explore options based Equity, Fixed Income and Commodity products, like Options, Structured Notes, Credit Default Swaps, and Convertible Bonds. - Strategies – A component of this course will revolve around how investors use these products through the combination of class discussions, guest speakers and project work. Toward the end of the course, we will try to identify future trends that may affect the market. We also look at historical events that shaped the markets, including the Pandemic.