Overview
Finance is essential to business. Finance faculty boast expertise in foundational concepts like corporate finance and macroeconomics, as well as specialized areas like mergers and acquisitions, derivatives and foreign exchange markets. Students within the program benefit from access to the Burridge Center for Securities Analysis and Valuation and the CU Real Estate Center. Our curriculum prepares students to succeed in areas such as financial management, business economics and real estate.
The finance program addresses issues in the financial services and securities area, including topics related to high technology firms, large corporations, and entrepreneurial companies. The finance program is designed to provide students with in-depth exposure to the background necessary for entry-level positions in various areas of financial management. Students study financial management, money and capital markets, investments and derivative securities, and financial institutions.
This program enables students to develop the ability to evaluate financial problems and formulate sound financial decisions and policies. Although emphasis is on financial management of profit-oriented organizations, the principles and concepts covered are applicable to nonprofit and governmental organizations.
The school recommends that finance students use their business electives to take additional accounting courses beyond the business core, such as ACCT 3220 and 3230.
Career Opportunities
Through the finance program, students acquire the skills to work in corporate finance, consulting, financial markets, and investment and commercial banking. Graduates are able to handle job responsibilities such as financial analysis, cash management, securities analysis, or trading. Jobs may be very lucrative, even in non-management positions such as currency trading.
Larger businesses generally divide finance activities into treasury and control functions, while smaller firms often combine the two. Treasury activities include managing cash, acquiring assets, raising funds through securities issues, and negotiating bank loans to finance assets. Early career opportunities are often in cash management, financial analysis, or asset acquisition activities. Starting positions in investment management include securities analysts or traders for investment banking firms.
Undergraduate Requirements
Required Courses
- ACCT 3220 Corporate Financial Reporting I (3) (counts as a business elective)
- FNCE 3010 Corporate Finance (3)
- FNCE 4030 Investment and Portfolio Management (3)
- FNCE 4850 Senior Seminar in Finance (3)
Students must also take three of the following courses: Two of which must be completed before enrolling in FNCE 4850
- FNCE 4000 Financial Institutions Management (3)
- FNCE 4040 Derivative Securities (3)
- FNCE 4050 Capital Investment Analysis (3)
- FNCE 4060 London Seminar in International Finance and Business (6) (Students may count 3 hours in the area of emphasis and 3 hours as Business Elective credit)
- FNCE 4070 Financial Markets and Institutions (3) (Formerly FNCE 3020)
- FNCE 4825 Experimental Seminar (variable credit)*
*(Only one FNCE 4825 course can be applied in the FNCE area of emphasis)
In addition, one of the following non-FNCE prefix courses can be substituted for one of the above FNCE elective courses to meet finance Area of Emphasis requirements.
- APPM 4720 Mathematical Finance (3)
- ESBM 4570 Entrepreneurial Finance (3)
- INBU 4200 International Financial Management (3)
- REAL 4100 Real Estate Finance & Investment Analysis (3)
Courses
First of a two-course sequence intended to provide students with increased fluency in the language of business.
BCOR 2200: Introductory Finance
Emphasizes the concepts and skills needed to make sound financial decisions. Topics include financial statement analysis, time value of money, interest rates, bond valuation and bond markets, stock valuation and stock markets, cost of capital and capital structure, capital budgeting, financial forecasting, and working capital management. Prereqs., BCOR 1020, 2000, and ECON 2010 or 2020. Coreq.second semester of ECON series and 26 hours completed. Formerly BCOR 2100.
Covers the theory and practices governing the management of capital in a business firm.
FNCE 4000: Financial Institutions Management
Analyzes the structure, markets, and regulations of financial institutions. Studies problems and policies of internal management of funds, loan practices and procedures, investment behavior, deposit and capital adequacy, liquidity, and solvency. Prerequisite: FNCE 3010
FNCE 4030: Investment and Portfolio Management
Develops modern portfolio theory and applies it to pricing both individual assets and portfolios of assets. Topics include Markowitz portfolio selection model, capital asset pricing model, arbitrage pricing theory, options, futures, bonds, portfolio performance measurement, and issues of market efficiency. Prereqs., FNCE 3010 and 3020.
FNCE 4040: Derivative Securities
Develops the modern theory of contingent claims in a mathematical framework oriented toward applications. Examines how to use derivatives for risk management and to tailor portfolio payoffs. Provides an in-depth analysis of the properties of options. Prereqs., FNCE 3010 and 3020.
FNCE 4820: Special Topics: Seminar in Investment Management
Offered irregularly to provide opportunity for investigation into new frontiers in finance. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Restricted to 52 hours completed.
FNCE 4850: Senior Seminar in Finance
Develops analytical and decision making skills necessary to address real-world business finance situations. Topics include financial analysis and forecasting, capital budgeting, valuation, capital structure policy, international finance, and financial ethics. Uses a combination of lecture and cases; team and individual work. Prereqs., ACCT 3220, FNCE 3010, 4030, and 102 hours completed. Restricted to graduating senior FNCE majors. Formerly BCOR 4002.
FNCE 7200: Doctoral Seminar: Empirical Research Methods in Finance
Develops an understanding of current empirical methods used to examine research issues related to corporatefinance and the capital markets.
Provides finance doctoral students with an orientation to the finance field.
INBU 4200: International Financial Management
Examines the financial policies and problems associated with firms doing business internationally. Topics include the foreign exchange environment, country risk, managing foreign exchange exposure, international working capital management, international capital budgeting, and international financial markets. Prereqs., BCOR 1020, 2000, and 2200. Restricted to students with 52 hours completed.
Applies the theory of asset pricing to capital budgeting, capital structure choice, mergers and acquisitions, and risk management.
Develops the foundations for the study of modern financial economics.
Video
This is a follow-up to Sanjai Bhagat's video on bank executive compensation. Bhagat, a finance professor at the Leeds School of Business, argues that U.S. banks should be funded with more capital and less debt and that the current standards for such funding are dangerously low.
News
eHow
January 28, 2011
While regulation compliance is one obvious reason why corporate governance matters, companies with systems of leadership checks and balances also reap other business benefits.
Three Social Souls
December 8, 2010
I pretty much knew I would do finance or accounting when I arrived at school and having made it in the business school this far, I have a few tips for those interested in the same path I am on.
Cenage Learning
February 1, 2011
Show your students how to apply today’s most effective corporate finance tools and techniques to their own entrepreneurial ventures with Leach/Melicher’s ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCE, 4E.
The New Yorker
June 1, 2009
In the apportioning of blame for the financial crisis, corporate boards of directors have remained remarkably unscathed.
Daily Finance
July 31, 2010
What will BP look like this time next year? Will there even be a BP as we now know it? The answers to those questions rest on several variables: most notably continued asset sales, future litigation and the fate of the company's now-tattered public image.
Publications
Forthcoming
Authors: Stephen Billings and Thomas G. Thibodeau
Empirically examines the extent to which the property tax liability created by financing residential infrastructure using special district bonds is capitalized in house prices.
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