Capital Markets & Investments

This is a first course in capital markets and investments. The course has three principal goals: To introduce the principles of asset valuation from an applied perspective. The majority of the class is concerned with the valuation of financial securities. The valuation issues to be discussed are heavily used in portfolio management and risk management applications. To introduce the following concepts: Arbitrage. The term structure of interest rates. Portfolio theory, risk-control, and diversification. Equilibrium asset pricing models; the CAPM. Efficient and inefficient markets. Performance evaluation. Pricing and hedging basic derivative securities (futures and options) To provide sufficient background knowledge for students seeking an overview of capital markets and an introduction to advanced finance courses.