Professional Documents
Culture Documents
I strongly urge you to use email to contact me outside of class. I will check my
email messages daily Monday through Friday and occasionally on weekends, and
Other Information
you can be sure I will receive your message this way. Feel free to stop by my
office during office hours or email or call me to set up an appointment.
You will also select and read one of the following three books:
Required Text & Against the Gods, The Remarkable Story of Risk, by Peter L. Bernstein,
Books Wiley 1998, ISBN: 0471295639
My Life as a Quant, Reflections on Physics and Finance, by Emmanuel
Derman, Wiley 2004, ISBN: 0471394203
Inventing Money, The story of Long-Term Capital Management and the
legends behind it, by Nicholas Dunbar, Wiley 1999, ISBN: 0471899992
This course combines interactive lectures, readings, problems and group work to
help the student master the material. The class will work through many examples
together and I will call on students often to ensure everyone is following the
Course Delivery
material. Homework problems will often involve material more advanced than
Methods
what was covered in class giving students the opportunity to build on the
concepts. Cases, prepared in groups, will focus on hedging applications to give
students the opportunity to work with real market data. Finally the book choices
Students must bring a hand held calculator with exponential functions to every
class. You may use your financial calculators, however be advised that to receive
partial credit on quizzes and exams you will need to solve the problems
Calculators algebraically. Using the programmable features of your calculator to store
formulas, text, or problem solving procedures during an exam will be considered
academic dishonesty and violations of this policy will be grounds for failing the
course.
We will make extensive use of the MS Excel software provided with the text
throughout the course. Therefore, each student must have access to a personal
Computers, Laptop
computer with Excel. You may bring your laptop computers to class, however
Computers
you will not be permitted to have them open during the lectures unless we are
working on a spreadsheet example or pricing model in class.
You may not use your cell phones or other electronic communication devices in
Cell Phones
class.
Course Policies
There will be two one hour and 15 minute exams. Those two exams will focus on the
material covered in class since the previous exam. All exams will be closed book,
Exams
calculators will be required, and you may prepare one 8 ½” x 11” sheet of paper
(both sides) with whatever handwritten notes you wish to include.
Homework will be assigned weekly and graded. The homework assignments will be
listed on WebCT and due at the start of class each Wednesday starting 1/17.
Homework Solutions to all of the end-of-the chapter problems in Chance will be posted on
Assignments WebCT after the homework has been turned in. Late homework will be given 50%
credit. You may work in groups on the homework assignments; however each
student is expected to turn in their own work.
Students registered for the class are required to attend all sessions. At the beginning
of each class, I will give you a mini quiz. It will consist out of (at most!) three
multiple choice questions (CFA). Only ten best quizzes would go to your grade.
Class
Attendance& You may request a waiver from attending a class by sending me e-mail before the
mini-Quizzes class describing (a) the reasons for absence and (b) how you plan to cover the
material discussed in the class.
Participation in class discussions is an important part of the learning process. Don’t
be hesitant or shy!!!
There will be one case assigned applying the concepts from class to a hedging
Case problem. You must work in groups of three students on the case. Further case details
will be forthcoming in class. Late case will not be accepted.
The book report should be an essay of no more than three typed pages (double
Book Report spaced) addressing the question: What are the important considerations for an
investor when applying valuation models in practice?
Always check WebCT before class. This site will include PowerPoint files of the
course lecture notes, homework assignments, any external web links, and relevant
WebCT
updates about the class including any changes to the schedule of assignments or
quizzes.
A student at the university neither loses the rights nor escapes the responsibilities of
citizenship. He or she is expected to obey federal, state, and local laws as well as the
Regents’ Rules, university regulations, and administrative rules. Students are subject
to discipline for violating the standards of conduct whether such conduct takes place
on or off campus, or whether civil or criminal penalties are also imposed for such
conduct.
The faculty expects from its students a high level of responsibility and academic
honesty. Because the value of an academic degree depends upon the absolute
integrity of the work done by the student for that degree, it is imperative that a student
demonstrate a high standard of individual honor in his or her scholastic work.
Scholastic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, statements, acts or omissions
related to applications for enrollment or the award of a degree, and/or the submission
as one’s own work or material that is not one’s own. As a general rule, scholastic
Academic
dishonesty involves one of the following acts: cheating, plagiarism, collusion and/or
Integrity
falsifying academic records. Students suspected of academic dishonesty are subject
to disciplinary proceedings.
Plagiarism, especially from the web, from portions of papers for other classes, and
from any other source is unacceptable and will be dealt with under the university’s
policy on plagiarism (see general catalog for details). This course will use the
resources of turnitin.com, which searches the web for possible plagiarism and is over
90% effective.
Copies of these rules and regulations are available to students in the Office of the
Dean of Students, where staff members are available to assist students in interpreting
the rules and regulations.
As per university policy, incomplete grades will be granted only for work
unavoidably missed at the semester’s end and only if 70% of the course work has
Incomplete been completed. An incomplete grade must be resolved within eight (8) weeks from
Grades the first day of the subsequent long semester. If the required work to complete the
course and to remove the incomplete grade is not submitted by the specified deadline,
the incomplete grade is changed automatically to a grade of F.
The goal of Disability Services is to provide students with disabilities educational
opportunities equal to those of their non-disabled peers. Disability Services is located
in room 1.610 in the Student Union. Office hours are Monday and Thursday, 8:30
a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; and Friday, 8:30
a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The contact information for the Office of Disability Services is:
The University of Texas at Dallas, SU 22
PO Box 830688
Richardson, Texas 75083-0688
(972) 883-2098 (voice or TTY)
Disability
Essentially, the law requires that colleges and universities make those reasonable
Services
adjustments necessary to eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability. For
example, it may be necessary to remove classroom prohibitions against tape recorders
or animals (in the case of dog guides) for students who are blind. Occasionally an
assignment requirement may be substituted (for example, a research paper versus an
oral presentation for a student who is hearing impaired). Classes enrolled students
with mobility impairments may have to be rescheduled in accessible facilities. The
college or university may need to provide special services such as registration, note-
taking, or mobility assistance.
It is the student’s responsibility to notify his or her professors of the need for such an
The University of Texas at Dallas will excuse a student from class or other required
activities for the travel to and observance of a religious holy day for a religion whose
places of worship are exempt from property tax under Section 11.20, Tax Code,
Texas Code Annotated.
If a student or an instructor disagrees about the nature of the absence [i.e., for the
purpose of observing a religious holy day] or if there is similar disagreement about
whether the student has been given a reasonable time to complete any missed
assignments or examinations, either the student or the instructor may request a ruling
from the chief executive officer of the institution, or his or her designee. The chief
executive officer or designee must take into account the legislative intent of TEC
51.911(b), and the student and instructor will abide by the decision of the chief
executive officer or designee.
Off-campus, out-of-state, and foreign instruction and activities are subject to state law
Off-Campus and University policies and procedures regarding travel and risk-related activities.
Instruction and Information regarding these rules and regulations may be found at
Course Activities http://www.utdallas.edu/BusinessAffairs/Travel_Risk_Activities.htm.
Additional information is available from the office of the school dean.
These descriptions and timelines are subject to change at the discretion of the Instructor.