• Know the characteristics of various popular financial models and compare their pros and cons.
• Design and implement computer programs using VBA.
• Develop financial models using spreadsheet and VBA.
• Describe financial models in both financial and computational terminologies.
• Use financial models in spreadsheet in numerical pricing and other applications.

Lecture Schedule:

You can download all course materials here as a zip file.

Week 1
(11/28 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Introduction to Spreadsheet Modeling and Excel | Powerpoint | Demo worksheet | Anwser |
(11/30 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) VBA I: User-defined Functions | Demo worksheet | Anwser |

No class for the week 12/5 - 12/10 for this course

Week 2
(12/12 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) VBA II: Variable Declaration, Conditional Statements, Iteration, and Result Presentation | Powerpoint | Demo worksheet | Answer |
(12/14 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) VBA III: User Interface Controls | Demo worksheet |

Assignment 1 (10% of final grade; due date: December 28 (Wed) 11:59pm)

Week 3
(12/19 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Portfolio Optimization I: Matrix Multiplication and Solver | Powerpoint | Demo worksheet | Anwser | Solver Demo | Answer |
Reference: VBA and Solver References
(12/21 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Portfolio Optimization II: Matrix Multiplication and Solver

Week 4
(12/28 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Binomial Tree I: Numerical Iteration | Powerpoint | Demo worksheet | Anwser |

Assignment 2 (15% of final grade; due date: January 10 (Tue) 11:59pm)

Week 5
(1/4 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Binomial Tree II: Numerical Iteration
(1/6 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Monte Carlo Pricing I: Generating Random Variables | Powerpoint | Demo worksheet | Anwser |

Week 6
(1/9 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Monte Carlo Pricing II: Generating Random Variables
(1/11 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Risk Management I: Statistics Application | Powerpoint | Demo worksheet | Anwser |

Assignment 3 (15% of final grade; due date: January 19 (Thu) 11:59pm)

Week 7
(1/16 - 6002A: LTA, Cyberport / 6002B: B2, Town Center) Risk Management II: Statistics Application
(1/21 - Pokfulam Main Campus) Final Exam: 4:00pm to 6:00pm

Supplementary:
Personal Finance | Demo worksheet | Anwser |
Interest Rate Derivatives (IRS, Swaps, Callable Deposit) | Demo worksheet |
Extending Excel Functionalities with C | Mark Davis website | ans: main.c | ans: testdll.xls |
Getting Financial Data into Excel | Demo worksheet | Anwser

Assessment:
In-class participation (10%)
Participation in class discussion, group discussion, presentation and playing a proactive role in other in-class activities.
Based on the rule of the MFin program, students with an attendance rate below 70% will automatically fail the course.

Individual assignments (40%)
The assignments include short questions and programming exercises
Please hand in the assignment by email and the filename of your assignment should be
assignment3_2005123456.xls if this is assignment No. 3 for student ID 2005123456.
The subject of the email should be Your Name (2005123456): Assignment3 . Please send it to
mfin6002a |or| mfin6002b |at| gmail |dot| com and cc to: mchau |at| business |dot| hku |dot| hk

Examination (50%)
The examination will test your knowledge about the concepts covered in class.
The examination will consist of multiple choices, short questions, and programming tasks.
You must receive permission to take the exam at a different time at least one week prior to the scheduled date and have a documented reason.