FIN - Finance   

FIN 623 - Corporate Finance
   This course develops a market-oriented framework for analyzing firms' financial decisions thereby enabling students to think critically about the essential features, assumptions, and implications of valuation and financing decisions. Major topics include financial analysis, planning and forecasting, valuation methodologies, cost of capital and capital structure, capital budgeting, risk analysis, and working capital management. Cases give students an opportunity to apply financial principles to actual business decision-making situations.
   Prerequisite: FIN 599 or equivalent.

FIN 648 - Investment & Portfolio Management
   This course provides a rigorous introduction to the investment process and fundamental concepts of asset valuation and selection in competitive markets. Students are armed with a wide array of analytical skills which are enhanced by using state-of-the-art technology, and which are applied in studying the valuation of various types of securities including bonds, stocks, and derivative securities such as options and futures. The course extends beyond modern portfolio theory to examine the investment and trading strategies of successful investors to enable students to formulate their own profitable investment policies.
   Prerequisites: FIN 623

FIN 652 - Financial Services Management
   Examines the unique challenges involved in the management of financial service firms. The course emphasizes asset/liability management, product development and performance assessment, project funding, credit card acquisitions and portfolio management, commercial banking, thrift institutions, financial planning, investment banking, brokerage, and commingled fund management. The student develops a thorough understanding of the process of growing and managing a complex of financial services and financial service functions. Rigorous case studies are used to highlight special managerial challenges and provide students with application opportunities.
   Prerequisite: FIN 623 or permission of instructor.

FIN 660 - Entrepreneurship
   This course investigates the entrepreneurial process from conception to the birth of a new venture. The course focuses on building a personal entrepreneurial perspective and appreciation for the unique management challenge of both independent and corporate entrepreneurship. The course examines the attributes and skills of entrepreneurs, searching for opportunities and evaluating their feasibility, building an entrepreneurial team, and gathering resources to convert opportunities into a business. Students are expected to develop at least one personal career option by finding, screening, and qualifying a viable venture opportunity.
   Prerequisite: FIN 623

FIN 665 - Financial Performance and Competitive Strategy
   This course is an advanced inter-disciplinary MBA course of applied nature that integrates a comprehensive set of business analytical skills into a focused framework to study, and evaluate, the impact of different business and competitive strategies on corporate financial performance. This evaluation provides immediate feedback on the validity of strategies to maintain and enhance firm’s strategic competitive positions regarding market share, profits, and industry leadership.
   Prerequisites: FIN 623 and ECO 642

FIN 691 - Risk Management & Financial Engineering
   This course is comprised of four distinct but related topics. Risk Management examines the application of financial theory and techniques to the management of economic and financial risk corporations face in a global context. A foundation is built for understanding the nature, magnitude, and interaction of various types of risk. The next three components of the course focus on managing the ongoing process of corporate change and rebirth necessitated by a rapidly evolving and increasingly competitive global environment. Special topics including mergers and acquisitions, LBO's and bankruptcy enable the student to apply prior learning. The third part of the course emphasizes practical approaches accomplishing successful "turnarounds" by focusing on the need for strategic planning, leadership and communication, cost cutting and the reallocation of resources in ways that increase productivity, maintain quality, and cater to customers. The final segment of the course deals with reengineering.
   Prerequisite: FIN 623

FIN 700- E-Finance
   This course integrates business and finance principles into the rapidly emerging Internet sector of the economy. The course builds a framework for understanding the development of the Internet in business and the structure of the industry. Students will be guided to think critically about finance, accounting, marketing, and ethical issues unique to the development of the Internet in a business setting. The course will culminate with a paper outlining the structure, role, and future development possibilities of the Internet and its particular challenge to financial markets. Students will work in teams to complete the paper.
   Prerequisite: FIN 623

FIN 702 – Risk Analysis and Management 
   Risk Analysis and Management is designed to provide advanced MBA students with a thorough and rigorous conceptual, analytical, and applied framework to identify, analyze, and evaluate corporate and investing financial risk in domestic and international financial markets. The course identifies, analyzes and evaluates interest rates risk, exchange rates risk, and commodity prices risk. The course also analyzes risk-mitigating tools that allow corporations and investors to formulate hedging strategies with coverage of options, forward contracts, future contracts and interest rates and currency swaps.
   Prerequisite:  FIN 623