Master of Business Administration

This course develops the advanced theoretical constructs of corporate financial decision making. Students are involved with the fundamental decisions and compromises of financial managers as they face the issues related to capital budgeting, cost of capital, dividend policy, long-term financing and mergers, and working capital management. The course presumes that students have a thorough understanding of the concept of the time value of money and have been introduced to the basic techniques of the financial systems and corporate financial management.

Fundamental techniques of financial analysis; examination of the application of these techniques to reporting, planning, controlling and evaluating business activity.

Equity Portfolio Management builds on modern portfolio theory to develop a framework for active portfolio management. Within the context of portfolio optimization, the course provides a general framework for designing, evaluating and implementing a variety of active strategies for selecting common stock portfolios. The essence of active management lies in forecasting abnormal returns and, to this end, the course reviews a number of empirical regularities in stock returns. Using software and data available through the Investments Center, students apply these concepts in the development and evaluation of their own portfolio strategies.

Derivatives are financial instruments whose returns depend on the performance of some other underlying assets. They are used extensively to manage financial risk. This course will study the building blocks of derivatives; futures, forwards and options, and examine their use in a number of applications including hedging, portfolio management and raising capital. The course will also study the securitization process and its role in creating derivative securities. Finally the course will examine organizational issues that are critical to avoiding derivative losses.

This is the first course in the graduate real estate curriculum and involves the study of the problems in financing residential, commercial and industrial real estate. Methods of financing covered include use of individual and business equity; loans secured by mortgages; land contracts; sale-and-lease-back arrangements; cooperatives, syndicates, and real estate servicing; foreclosing loans and mortgage arrangements by principals, agents and mortgage bankers.

This course provides the opportunity for students to delve into current controversies and recent developments in the areas of real estate and financial analysis, land use policies, and valuation issues affecting today’s market. Topics may include computerizations, development, law, taxation and governmental policies.

This course develops an understanding of the futures and options markets. The use of these markets for arbitrate and risk reduction in portfolio management is discussed, Basic models for option pricing are covered. Pricing of futures contracts is covered in considerable detail. Students will comprehend the effects of hedging and speculative activity on the efficiency of the markets.

Basic concepts of investment policy, analytic techniques, valuation theory and financial markets are examined and models developed for determining the worth of a security.

This course will consider special contemporary topics in Finance. The focus of the course will depend on the topics to be covered each time the course is offered. Students should check with the Graduate School of Business Office prior to registration for a summary of course content.