Investments
Instructor:
Professor Jeff LinIntroduction:
INVESTMENTS course is intended for people to understand the basic knowledge about financial analysis and investment. With only 30 hours, we will cover most of the important topics but not the whole book. Students are required to write a report for using the knowledge learned to the real market.
Textbook for this course
FUNDAMENTALS OF INVESTMENTS: Valuation and Management w/SSS
Authors
Charles J. Corrado, The University of Auckland
Bradford D. Jordan, University of Kentucky--Lexington
Description: (C) 2000
ISBN: 0-07-231941-0
Publication date: September 1999
Overview
The target market for this text is an introductory undergraduate course in which students have relatively little familiarity with investments and would like a practical and applied type of text. The approach of this undergraduate investments text reflects two central ideas: 1. A consistent focus on the student as an individual investor or investment advisor. 2. A consistent, unified treatment of the four basic types of financial instruments
“ stocks, bonds, options, and futures “ focusing on their characteristics and features, their risks and returns, and the markets in which they trade. The focus on the student as the audience paired with Brad Jordan’s conversational writing style makes this a very relevant and understandable text. This text is a great complement to trading simulations, especially Stock-Trak, by covering the basic material early enough to begin trad ing in the first two weeks of the course.
Features
The authors goal for the students is to understand financial instruments and their markets, and to be intelligent consumers of financial information. This class is not training ground for security analysts or portfolio managers. These are more specialized and more intensive subjects. Instead, this book surveys the modern world of investments, familiarizing students with the many different types of instruments, their basic features, and how they are bought and sold. Attention-Grabbing Openers. Each chapter begins with a
?Did you know??? type scenario that presents an interesting fact or misconception about investing to draw the student into the chapter.Check This! This feature presents review questions at the end of each major section so students can check their understanding of the material before going forward. Investment Updates. These boxed readings, taken from the business press, illustrate content covered in the chapters as it is applied in the real world.
Numbered Examples. Examples are called out and numbered for ease in identifying them. Each example explains step-by-step how to solve the problem or resolve the issue, and the reasoning behind the steps.
Get Real! This section at the end of each chapter explains how this material can be used in real life. This feature supports the practical focus of this text.
Self-Test Questions. In the end-of-chapter material, there are 1-3 self-test questions and worked out solutions for students to review before moving on to the problems.
Test Your IQ (Investment Quotient). These multiple-choice questions (10-20 per chapter) test the students’ understanding of key concepts in the chapter. The answers are at the end of the text in an appendix.
Questions and Problems. An average of 20-30 questions and problems are included in each chapter. The questions are categorized as Basic and Challenge.
Stock-Trak Fast Track. A majority of the chapters have a special section at the end that introduces students to an aspect of Stock-Trak, a trading simulation, and includes projects related to this product.
Self Study Software--this self-study CD-ROM is packaged free with every new book purchased from Irwin/McGraw-Hill. An average of 75 multiple-choice and true/false questions per chapter can be found. The questions are patterned after the test bank calculator,
FinCalc. This is actually two calculators in one.
The first is a stock options calculator based on the famous Black-Scholes-Merton option pricing model, and the second is a U.S. Treasury market. Intended to supplement chapters 10 and 15 of Corrado/Jordan, students can easily perform numerical calculations discussed in these chapters. In addition, each calculator has graphing capabilities to help the student better understand the relationships between variables used in these calculations.
Table of Contents
14. Stock Options
16. Futures Contracts
17. Principles of Asset Allocation
18. Modern Theories of Financial Markets
19. International Finance and Investments