78490 - Financial Markets

Learning outcomes

At the completion of the module, students will be able to understand and analyze the decisions taken by economic agents and their interaction in the financial markets, and specifically to evaluate economic and financial outcomes when taking investment, portfolio, and asset allocation decisions.

Course contents

Financial Markets will deal with the theory and the practice of investments. The module will specialize to the theory of decision-making under uncertainty, applying it to develop and implement modern portfolio theory. The major topics covered will include Markowitz optimization, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), multifactor models, market efficiency, and the ouverture to market anomalies and behavioral finance.

Readings/Bibliography

The main textbook for the course is:

- Peterson Drake, P. and F. J. Fabozzi, The Basics of Finance: An Introduction to Financial Markets, Business Finance, and Portfolio Management, John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

Additional readings may be assigned by the instructor as the course progresses.

Assessment methods

Course attendance is mandatory. 70 percent of the lectures is the minimum attendance rate to be granted the access to the 90 minutes final class test (encompassing both Introduction to Finance and Financial Markets) that will take place after the class ending, within the official exam sessions. It will include 8 multiple choice questions (8 points), 1 open question (8 points) and 2 exercises (14 points, i.e. 7 points each). Moreover, students will be asked to present and critically discuss a topic in finance (team work) in the last scheduled meeting (about 15-20 minutes for each presentation, depending on the number of students). This will provide the participants with a maximum of 4 points (to be added to the final written exam mark). Please note that these additional extra-points will be only valid in the official exam session right after the course ending, unless the candidate asks not to proceed sending an email to the instructor before the registration date.

All positive grades will be automatically registered within 1 week from grading (registration date), unless the candidate asks not to proceed sending an email to the instructor before the registration date.

Office hours

See the website of Massimiliano Barbi