Finance and Investment, MSc

University of Greenwich

This module is for students to consolidate grammatical accuracy and knowledge of vocational and academic lexis in written and spoken English; to further develop critical awareness of features of written and spoken texts such as discourse, register and appropriateness of style; to broaden their range of writing skills to a higher level of fluency and refine usage and command of style and register; gain a better understanding of the need to use clear and consistent systems of referencing and an ability to put such systems into practice.

The aims of this course are to: provide the students with the necessary knowledge and skills of financial reporting to be able to undertake an in-depth, fundamental analysis of company performance sufficient to be able to make an informed appraisal of the company?s future prospects and its underlying value; appreciate the critical role played by financial reports in investment decision making; identify and combine the information that is available publically to the shareholders in the financial statements and other sources with the theoretical principles that underpin a range of valuation models to evaluate, explain and assess the value of equities; and appreciate the factors that drive share prices and contrast with fundamental values.

The module provides students with conceptual frameworks to understand and evaluate the roles, functions and activities of financial institutions and financial markets in providing financing and risk management services to their users. It also informs participants of the principles underlying the latest techniques to measure and manage financial risks (essentially credit, market, interest rate and liquidity risks) and how to apply them. Additionally attention is paid in the first half of the course to the impact of monetary and fiscal policies, business cycles, market organization and structure. The second half of the module provides an in-depth analysis of credit and equity derivative products where an emphasis is given on corporate derivatives covering the most important products, their rationale and mechanics, pricing and modelling. The range of products analyzed covers Credit Default Swaps, indices and options; equity dividend swaps, Equity Correlation Trading, Credit Securitization and CDOs.

The aims of this module are: to enable students to understand and apply a range of skills in respect of listening, note taking and studying in a postgraduate financial environment; to equip students with skills in reading and writing at advanced levels; to introduce students to key elements of university writing and academic journal writing; to provide students with the opportunity to think laterally and argue rationally and applying these skills in planning written work and presenting written/oral data in appropriate format; and to provide students with basic statistical skills and to train students in statistical analysis.

The module introduces participants to the latest techniques available for making optimal asset allocation decisions, whether for a domestic or global bond portfolio, a domestic or global equity portfolio, or any combination of underlying asset and currency exposure. It also provides the students with a thorough grounding in the theoretical and empirical literature of techniques for the analysis and management of investment and risk used by the investment industry. The first half of the module introduces students to the theoretical background for the application of portfolio selection and asset pricing. It will discuss main equilibrium models for asset pricing and accustom students with applying modern portfolio theory for the practice of investment management. The second part of the module will provide the students with a unified approach to asset management and risk management. There will be practical simulations in portfolio construction and evaluation, examples of style investing, long-short portfolio construction, market timing and asset allocation strategies and discussion of fixed income investment strategies.

This fundamental course in Finance aims to provide students with an understanding of the role of finance in business; the nature of available financial instruments and determinants of the prices of marketable securities; investment appraisal decisions, risk management methods, capital structure and dividend policy. All of these topics are studied in the context of effective financial management, corporate governance and business ethics. During the course students will gain an understanding of long-term financial strategies, basic valuation principles, basics of company valuation, effective investment decisions, bond pricing, cost of capital and capital asset pricing, corporate governance and ethics and basics of financial risk management, among others. Finance theories, tools and techniques covered in the course can be utilized in any management decision-making process in any business sector.

The aims of this module are: to develop a suitable research proposal in accounting, finance, banking, investment, financial management or other appropriate area of accounting or finance; to develop skills in manipulating and analysing datasets using statistical techniques and packages; to create and build a working relationship with an appropriate supervisor who can support the student through the development of the research proposal and subsequent completion of the Dissertation course (either 45 or 30 credit variant).

The aim of the project is to examine and report on a specific finance research question which will generally be set for students (although students may suggest their own question stemming from experience or interest). The MSc Finance and Investment master?s Research Project will be in the region of 8,000 - 9,000 words, excluding appendices. The project will require testing of hypotheses by analysis of significant amounts of secondary data. The project allows the candidate to apply the research skills built into the pre-requisite for this course, Research Methods.