54709 - Financial Markets and Instruments

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student: has acquired full knowledge of the financial tools and services that allow families and businesses to satisfy their financial needs; has acquired the methodological knowledge and critical skills required to deal efficiently with financial operators and intermediaries; has acquired adequate knowledge of the structure and functioning of stock markets.

Course contents

The contents are based on the acquisition: 1) of a personal financial education that leads to an awareness of the management of one's resources based on the needs and objectives to be achieved; 2) a necessary financial competence for the development, management and control of the economic and financial activities of the company. The program will be developed considering, in addition to traditional finance, digital finance (fintech) and decentralized finance (bitcoin, cryptocurrency market and the main financial instruments based on blockchain technology).
The main topics covered are related to:

- The financial system: components, instruments (bank accounts, loans, bonds, shares, ETFs, mutual funds and combined solutions), markets (bond and equity), intermediaries and useful regulatory guidelines to take into consideration;

- Reasons for the existence of intermediaries;

- Functions of the financial system: intermediation, monetary, payments system, transmission of monetary policy which impacts the choices of families and businesses;
- Identification, management and coverage of risks by families and investors;

- Innovative tools on the financial market: The evolution of the world of finance, reference context, impacts and opportunities for families and businesses;

- Evaluation methods on the financial market: information architecture in the financial statement for access to credit, capital raising and risk prevention for investors;

- the company's financial needs, development of a business plan and definition of the company financial plan;

- Construction and assignment of credit ratings;

- Venture Capital and Crowdfunding: Financing and Equity different ways to financially support newly established companies (start-ups);

- Analysis of company economic and financial data in relation to the information to be given to the market. The reference financial ratios evaluated and to be evaluated in the stock market;

-Practical analysis of real cases of dynamic and static business plans and cash flow statements

 

Readings/Bibliography

For those who attend the course, preparation is based on the notes and material (slides) provided by the teacher online.

For those who do not attend the course or have an attendance rate of less than 80%, it is recommended that, in addition to studying all the material available online, they further study the following text:

TEXT AVAILABLE FOR FREE ONLINE

OpenStax. 2023. Principles of Finance. https://openstax.org/details/books/principles-finance?Book%20details

Teaching methods

The aim of the course is to enable students to achieve a broad financial education and awareness that allows valuable choices and decisions in their lives and in managing business in any capacity. Therefore, all contents will be brought into the practical reality of the historical period we are experiencing, drawing parallels with different situations belonging to the past and potential future scenarios which, based on current information, we can expect to understand how to move.
An interactive teaching method is used which involves students in the practical application of what is illustrated.
Each attending student will be asked to follow the financial market information that acts as a market mover on a platform available on the databases offered by Alma Mater.
Weekly we will apply the contents addressed to what is happening on the market to understand opportunities, risks and expectations.

Assessment methods

in progress

As required by the rules approved by the School, current students can take the exam through two partial tests with the same structure described above. Participation in the second partial test is permitted, once and only once, even if a grade lower than 18 was achieved in the first test. The final grade is made up of the arithmetic mean of the grades achieved in the two partial tests: students who do not have passed the exam through the partial tests, they will have to take it again, for the entire program, at the first available official exam.
Participation in the exams is permitted only to students i) who have registered for the test on Almaesami and ii) who are up to date with the payment of university fees.
The recording of the grades takes place automatically (in the absence of the student) electronically no earlier than the fifth day following the publication of the results on Almaesami: the grade can be rejected once (art. 16, co. 5 University teaching regulations). Graduating students who need to register their grade in advance are invited to communicate this to the teacher via email.
It is possible to view the corrected exam papers and ask for clarifications through appointments set with the teacher through teams.

Teaching tools

Educational material in the form of handouts and articles taken from financial newspapers, made available in electronic format.

Office hours

See the website of Cristina Baldi