Finance

• QST FE 498: Directed Study: Finance
  Directed study in Finance. 2 or 4 cr. Application available on Undergraduate Program website.
• QST FE 550: Private Equity: Leveraged Buyouts (formerly FE450)
  Pre-requisite: QSTFE 445 or QSTFE 449. Exposes students to, and demystifies, the world of Private Equity (PE). The focus is centered on LBOs and their position in the "alternative asset" class. Students learn about the activities of a PE firm including formation, fund- raising, investing (including deal structure, terms, due diligence, and governance), and exiting. Also discussed are what other industry sectors serve or are affected by PE and who the players are. Case study and class participation will be the primary modes of learning.
• QST FE 555: AI for Financial Analysis
  Pre-requisite: QSTFE 723; or QSTFE 445. This course introduces students to the application of artificial intelligence (AI) tools—particularly large language models (LLMs)—in modern financial analysis. Students will learn best practices in AI-assisted research, ethical considerations, and practical workflows for integrating AI into financial decision-making.
• QST FE 562: Business Valuation (formerly FE462)
  Pre-requisite: QSTFE 223 previously or concurrently, or QSTFE 323. Questrom BSBA students only. The objective of this course is to understand how companies are valued and provide a framework to approach valuation within any field of finance. Valuation is a critical tool and technique that is required across all sectors within the field of finance: corporate finance, venture capital, private equity, investment banking, and public equity investing. Yet, despite the differences in each of these areas, the approach to valuation is consistent across all disciplines. The guiding principle underlying this course is that value is created when a company earns a return on capital that exceeds its cost of capital. A company's value is predominantly driven by two factors: the spread between its return on invested capital and cost of capital, and the company's ability to generate unit growth. Business Valuation will provide the skills necessary to evaluate a company's business model, analyze published financial statements, convert these financial statements into a model that forecasts its financial statements, assess its cost of capital, and most importantly how to use these inputs to determine its valuation.
• QST FE 711: Finance 1
  This course begins by briefly introducing students to some fundamental concepts in financial theory, including the separation of investment, cash flow and consumption decisions for firms; the time-value of money, net present value, and the associated impetus towards value-based decision making; as well as arbitrage and the law of one price, and the idea of efficient markets. Students will then dig deeper into the mechanics of discounting, compounding, and calculating free cash flows, giving them tools to make value-based decisions about whether to undertake or cancel a project within a firm; value a share, or acquire a company, using a given discount rate.
• QST FE 712: Finance 2
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTFE711) - The course begins with a brief introduction to some basic financial securities (stocks and bonds) and how to calculate their risks, returns, and correlations. We will then study the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) of asset pricing model, a theory setting out the required returns on financial assets, and its implications for how to invest in financial markets. We will use the CAPM to derive a required return on investment, which we will then use as to calculate a weighted average cost of capital (WACC), which will be the discount rate used to assess the net present value of business investments. The WACC can be used to find the present discounted value of a firm, or of a potential acquisition, as well as to determine the net present value (NPV) of a project under consideration for investment by a firm. The course will finish with a case study valuation of one such project or acquisition, using knowledge on the calculation of free cash flows from FE711 and of the calculation of the discount rate from FE712.
• QST FE 713: Finance 3
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTFE712). - This course extends students' understanding of corporate valuation beyond that acquired by allowing for valuing firms with different capital structures (e.g., what happens to valuation when a firm levers up?). This practical knowledge is built upon an analytical framework about the costs and benefits of different forms of financing (debt, equity, hybrid securities) in different industries, time periods, and circumstances. When should firms use debt financing, and when equity? What is the impact of paying dividends? When should dividends be preferred to share buybacks, and when should cash be retained in the firm rather than paid out? This course will give students an insight into the answers to these and similar questions.
• QST FE 722: Financial Management
  Graduate Prerequisites: QST MO712 or MO713, QST AC710 or AC711 (previous or concurrent) - The objective of this course is to introduce the students to the theory and practice of corporate finance, and to provide the students with a set of analytical tools necessary to answer the most important questions related to firms' valuation and investment decision making first under certainty and then under uncertainty. The course can be divided into the following three building blocks: valuation, investment decisions, and the relation between risk and return.
• QST FE 723: Introduction to Corporate Finance
  The objective of this course is to introduce students to the theory and practice of corporate finance, and to provide students with a set of concepts and tools necessary to answer the most important questions related firms' valuation as well as investment and financing decisions, both under certainty and under uncertainty. The course covers time value of money, free cash flow, net present value, risk-adjusted discounting using the capital asset pricing model, weighted average cost of capital, effects of financial leverage on firm value, and valuation methods with leverage to determine the value of a project or firm.
• QST FE 740: Statistics for Finance
  This course provides a rigorous foundation in probability and statistics, covering estimation, hypothesis testing, and confidence intervals in depth. As finance relies on probability models to measure and manage risk, students will apply modern statistical methods to real financial data, learning to estimate key parameters and assess model validity.
• QST FE 747: Data Analytics in Finance
  Prerequisite: QSTFE 740. This course equips students with essential data analysis and visualization skills using tools like Python, with applications in finance. Students will learn statistical modeling, financial data processing, and enhance decision-making through analytics. The course prepares master’s students in statistics and quantitative methods for sophisticated financial analysis and forecasting.
• QST FE 813: Investment and Portfolio Analytics
  Co-requisites: QSTFE 723 and QSTFE 740. After a quick description of the evolution of Finance and the industry, we study the cost of trading. Then we introduce the utility framework, insurance and risk concepts, portfolio theory, CAPM, the theory of active management, index and factor models, the APT, performance evaluation and the efficient market hypothesis. We implement the statistical analytics concepts (with the R package, no prior knowledge required) common in quantitative portfolio management to analyze financial returns and demonstrate the concepts learnt.
• QST FE 820: Corporate Financial Management
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTFE712 OR QSTFE722) - This course provides an in-depth analysis of financial considerations relating to corporate growth. It addresses the setting of financial and corporate goals in terms of maximizing shareholder wealth and relationships among working capital, debt levels, capital costs, dividend policy, growth and the value of the firm. It also considers the requisite financial analysis associated with mergers and acquisitions and bankruptcy.
• QST FE 822: Fixed Income Markets
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTFE712 OR QSTFE722) - This is a course primarily on fixed-income debt securities and markets. Emphasis is placed on the factors that determine bond yields, factors such as the coupon and maturity structure, liquidity, credit risk, and tax status of the security, and on measures of return and risk, statistics such as the yield to maturity, horizon yield, duration, and convexity. We will cover government debt (Treasuries and municipals), corporate bonds (investment-grade and high-yield), agency (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and mortgage-backed debt created via securitization (i.e., collateralized mortgage obligations). We will emphasize how interest rate and credit derivatives are used to manage portfolios of fixed-income securities.
• QST FE 823: Investments
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTFE712 OR QSTFE722) - Introduction to the investment management process. Defining investment objectives and constraints. Introduction to Modern Portfolio Theory, CAPM, Fama- French factors, APT, efficient markets, stock, bond and option valuation models. Introduction to forwards and swaps and their applications within investment strategies. Active and passive investment strategies, fundamental analysis, trading practices, and performance evaluation. Introduction to the role of futures and options in hedging and speculation. Arbitrage and hedge fund strategies. Understanding the assumptions underlying the different approaches and their limitations. Topics related to current events and the recent financial crisis.
• QST FE 829: Futures, Options and Financial Risk Management
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTFE712 OR QSTFE722) - This course covers the theory of futures, swaps and option pricing and develops a framework for analyzing hedging and investment decisions using these instruments. Attention is paid to practical considerations in the use of these investments, tax and accounting issues and the institutional features of the market in which the various instruments are traded.
• QST FE 833: ESG Equity Investing
  ESG Equity Investing is an introductory course that provides the appropriate tools to analyze and undertake investments in publicly listed companies taking into account the social impact of these financial decisions. Different dimensions of social impact -- Environment, Social, and Governance -- are discussed along with corresponding ESG metrics available to investors. The core of the course deals with the integration of (quantitative-based) portfolio allocation models with (qualitative-based) ESG scores and objectives. The course also discusses how impact investing may affect the behavior of firms, as well as alternative channels through which investors can provide impact (private investments, activism).
• QST FE 850: Private Equity: Leveraged Buyouts
  Graduate Prerequisites: (QSTFE713 OR QSTFE820) - Private Equity (PE) is a major force in the capital markets, acquiring household names such as Dell, Toys R Us, Neilson, Nieman Marcus, and many more. This course exposes students to, and de-mystifies, the PE world. The focus is centered on LBOs and their position in the alternative asset class. Students learn about the activities of PE firms including formation, fundraising, investing (deal structure, terms, due diligence, governance) and exiting. We also discuss how other industry sectors serve or are affected by PE and who the players are. This is a capstone course that integrates marketing, strategy and finance to further the understanding of business evaluation. Case study and class participation are the primary modes of learning. Course offered jointly with undergraduate course SMG FE 450.
• QST FE 854: Entrepreneurial Finance
  Graduate Prerequisites: QST AC710 or AC711, QST FE712 or FE722 - The focus of FE854 is on the development of financial and business skills to identify, evaluate, start and manage new ventures. A comprehensive understanding of finance is an essential ingredient in the "recipe" for business success. No longer can the assumptions underlying financial projections be treated as "black boxes." In many cases, the answer is less important than the analytical process used to calculate it. Readings for the course will primarily be in the form of case studies, and will be supplemented by guest speakers, presentations, and readings from academia and industry.
• QST FE 860: Behavioral Finance and Incentives in Financial Markets
  Pre-requisite: QSTFE 712 or QSTFE 722 or QSTFE 723. Behavioral finance is an area of finance that started with some psychologists interested in decision making in finance and economics and observed that some of the assumptions standard in finance were not consistent with the behavior of agents. Following this lead, economics and finance scholars used these tools to try to explain some of the patterns in investment decisions and financial prices that the standard paradigm could not explain. This course is an overview of these findings with a practical focus on current events in financial markets and how behavioral finance could help to understand them.