| Unit name | Advanced Topics in Finance |
|---|---|
| Unit code | ACCG30015 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24) |
| Unit director | Professor. George Bulkley |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
Corporate Finance (EFIM20006) |
| Co-requisites |
Financial Markets and Corporate Finance ACCG30014 |
| School/department | School of Economics, Finance and Management |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
The first term will be taught by George Bulkley.
This will cover the causes, consequences, and appropriate policy relating to the recent credit crisis. Most of your work on asset pricing assumes efficient markets. Recent events cast doubt on the macro rationality of markets. We start with an examination of the UK credit crisis. We will look at the background and discuss who the players were. To what extent were bankers, the regulators or the government responsible? What were these securities that precipitated the crisis and why did the markets in them collapse leading to a crisis of liquidity.
We then identify the elements in the UK crisis that are common to similar crises around the world and in history. Is the UK crisis part of a general pattern? We examine other financial crises that have been seen in the last century. We look at problems of asset price bubbles and speculation, bank runs, liquidity, the role of credit in business cycles, the role of financial intermediation.
We then turn to the future and consider what the government response should be in the short term and how regulation might be tightened so that in the long run a crisis is less likely to recur.
The second term will be taught by Dr Sylvain Friedrich.
The main topic in this part of the course will be portfolio management: we will discuss the construction, implementation and evaluation of investment portfolios. That is, we will derive the techniques used by investment managers to build and maintain portfolios of stocks and bonds and the techniques used by investors to assess portfolio manager performance. This section will combine an understanding of:
On successful completion of this unit a student will be able to:
portfolios
1 hour lecture each week, fortnightly tutorials in small groups.
Financial Markets and Corporate Strategy, Mark Grinblatt & Sheridan Titman, Mc Graw-Hill plus additional journal literature.
