Binghamton University

School of Management

FIN 320 Financial Markets and Institutions

Fall 2003

Class meetings: MWF, 2:20-3:20pm, SW325

Instructor: Alexander Kurov

Office: AA223

Office phone: (607) 777-5199

E-mail: akurov@binghamton.edu

Office hours: MWF 12:00-1:00 p.m., or by appointment.

Prerequisites: FIN 311, ACCT 211, ACCT 212, ECON 160, ECON 162 and QMMG 111.

Course Description: This course is designed to give students a working knowledge of financial markets and institutions. Topics to be covered include market structure, determinants of interest rates, term-structure of interest rates, financial intermediation and derivative securities. In addition, in this course we will specifically focus on banking.

Materials

Required text: “Financial Markets and Institutions,” Madura, J., 6th Edition. The accompanying study guide is recommended. Internet resources and interactive quizzes for the book are available at http://www.swlearning.com/finance/madura/fmi6e/fmi6e.html

Stanford Banking Game – Player’s Manual. The manual and other materials for the game are available on Blackboard in PDF and Word format.

Case: The Bank Stock Investment Decision, Richard Ivey School of Business.

Wall Street Journal or other financial newspapers.

A financial calculator will be helpful for bond and stock valuation chapters.

Blackboard: I will use Blackboard (http://blackboard.binghamton.edu) throughout the course to post your homework assignments, classroom handouts, as well as exam dates and project deadlines. Please refer to the documents provided by the Computer Center if you have never used Blackboard before.

Grading: Grading will be based on a curve and will depend on overall performance of the class. The following assignments and exams will constitute your grade for the course:

No make-up exams or incompletes will be given except in extraordinary circumstances (suitable documentation will be required). Late assignments will not be accepted.

Changes in the sequencing of material, assignments, or grading policy may be made as the course progresses. Such changes will be announced in class and students are responsible for learning about these changes.

Attendance and Participation: Regular attendance is important. You are expected to come to the class prepared for active participation. Attendance and participation may improve or worsen your grade.

Homework: Homework from the book and the study guide will be assigned. Unless mentioned in class, these assignments are not to be handed in. They are however part of the required material for this course. Solutions to homework problems will be posted on Blackboard.

Quizzes: A number of unannounced, short quizzes will be given. These will cover chapters and materials covered in previous lectures and homework assignments.

Outside Reading: Students are required to keep up with current financial news.  Reading of Wall Street Journal is strongly encouraged. Articles can be assigned as required reading from time to time.

Team Projects: In this class we will do a case and a banking game. Both are group projects. Groups must contain 5 members. Exceptions are only possible when approved by the instructor.

Banking Game: You will compete with other groups by running your own bank in a competitive environment. Each week, before the start of Friday’s class your decision sheet has to be handed in or emailed to the instructor. At the end of the semester you will prepare your annual report. This report should be similar to the annual report that a bank would present to its shareholders. Your team will present the report to the class. Your grade for the game will be determined by the quality of the report and presentation.

The team that wins the banking game gets 10 extra points to the final exam score. The team that finishes second gets 5 points. The ranking of teams will be determined based on stock prices of all banks in the game.

Case: Your team will need to prepare a report analyzing the assigned case. We will also discuss the case in class after the reports are collected.

Exams and Project Deadlines (tentative)

Banking Game

Course Outline (tentative)

To enhance your understanding in class, you should read the relevant chapters and review the assigned end-of-chapter problems before coming to class.

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