93091 - Financial Economics

Academic Year 2024/2025

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Economics, Markets and Institutions (cod. 8038)

Learning outcomes

The student learns the basic insights into portfolio theory and management. He/she learns about investor’s choice, market opportunities, and optimal portfolio selection trading-off returns and risk. Some of the topics covered are mean-variance portfolio theory, efficient portfolio and efficient frontier, Capital asset pricing model, Arbitrage pricing model.

Course contents

First, the course introduces the students to the problem of managing a portfolio.

- the mean-variance portfolio choice,

- CAPM,

- APT, Fama-French models.

Second, the course introduces the students to the main models and techniques that are used to analyze fixed income securities.

- Starting from basic concepts such as the yield curve, yield-to-maturity, duration, convexity, the course introduces portfolio hedging strategies based on duration-matching or asset liability management.

Third, the course introduces options pricing

Fourth, the course expose the students to the main behavioural finance findings in teh current literature

Readings/Bibliography

Bodie, Kane and Marcus (2011), Investments, McGraw-Hill

Teaching methods

Lectures, slides, Homework

Assessment methods

mid-term+final exam

Teaching tools

Slides, Homeworks

Office hours

See the website of Filippo Massari