Fbe 459 Financial Derivatives
FBE 459 – Financial Derivatives
Spring 2013 Scott Joslin University of Southern California Marshall School of Business
Course Description
This course intends to be an introduction to financial derivatives, namely options, futures and swaps. Our main goal will be to focus on the uses of derivatives for hedging and speculation and to understand risk neutral pricing of derivatives. The emphasis of the course will be on conceptual issues as opposed to the institutional aspects (although the basic institutional aspects will be covered). By all standards this is a quantitative class and a good background in calculus and statistics is highly desirable, if not necessary. Knowledge of Excel will be useful (though not required) as some analysis will be done in Excel. …show more content…
Other finance-related topics may be acceptable for presentations as well. The student groups should find a topic, and prepare to present it and answer potential questions in class. Students should form groups and book their presentations with me. By Saturday at 6:00 p.m. before the presentation, one of the students in the group should email me information about the topic and how the group plans to present it in class. Make sure you contribute to one presentation during the course because it will affect your grade. I will not evaluate students differently within each group; rather, I will evaluate the group performance as a whole. Thus, it does not matter whether you presented or helped behind the scene in the preparation for your group …show more content…
The Review process can be found at www.usc.edu/student-affairs/ SJACS/. Failure to adhere to the academic conduct standards set forth by these guidelines and our programs will not be tolerated by the USC Marshall community and can lead to dismissal.
Disability
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to your TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776. For more information visit
Spring 2013 Scott Joslin University of Southern California Marshall School of Business
Course Description
This course intends to be an introduction to financial derivatives, namely options, futures and swaps. Our main goal will be to focus on the uses of derivatives for hedging and speculation and to understand risk neutral pricing of derivatives. The emphasis of the course will be on conceptual issues as opposed to the institutional aspects (although the basic institutional aspects will be covered). By all standards this is a quantitative class and a good background in calculus and statistics is highly desirable, if not necessary. Knowledge of Excel will be useful (though not required) as some analysis will be done in Excel. …show more content…
Other finance-related topics may be acceptable for presentations as well. The student groups should find a topic, and prepare to present it and answer potential questions in class. Students should form groups and book their presentations with me. By Saturday at 6:00 p.m. before the presentation, one of the students in the group should email me information about the topic and how the group plans to present it in class. Make sure you contribute to one presentation during the course because it will affect your grade. I will not evaluate students differently within each group; rather, I will evaluate the group performance as a whole. Thus, it does not matter whether you presented or helped behind the scene in the preparation for your group …show more content…
The Review process can be found at www.usc.edu/student-affairs/ SJACS/. Failure to adhere to the academic conduct standards set forth by these guidelines and our programs will not be tolerated by the USC Marshall community and can lead to dismissal.
Disability
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to your TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776. For more information visit