Financial Markets and Instruments

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

Estimated total time commitment of 120 hours per semester

Completion of FNCE30002 Corporate Finance or FNCE90018 Corporate Financial Policy.

This subject is only available to students who would satisfy the entry criteria for the Master of Finance, the Postgraduate Diploma in Finance and for students in the Master of Accounting who have completed FNCE90018 Corporate Financial Policy.

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For the purposes of considering requests for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements for this entry.

The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

The structure of the financial system; terminology, trading and pricing of money and capital market instruments; duration, value at risk, financial market volatility; term structure of interest rates; inflation, interest rates and indexed securities; regulation of securities markets and financial institutions; market; tax treatment of financial institutions; tax and company finance; futures markets; options markets; forward rate agreements; swaps; developments in retail financial markets.

On successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

• Analyse the nature of financial markets and explain the principles by which financial markets operate;
• Describe the major institutional participants and markets;
• Explain the risk return spectrum and the characteristics of financial instruments;
• Describe derivatives and explain how they are used in the management of financial risk;
• Apply the theory of regulation to current markets and critically assess the current regulatory structures.

• 3000 word assignment due in Weeks 7 to 9 (30%)
• 3-hour end-of-semester examination (70%)

You will be advised of prescribed texts by your lecturer.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

On successful completion of this subject, students should have improved the following generic skills:

• Oral communication
• Written communication
• Collaborative learning
• Problem solving
• Team work
• Statistical reasoning
• Application of theory to practice
• Interpretation & analysis
• Critical thinking
• Synthesis of data and other information
• Evaluation of data and other information
• Using computer software
• Accessing data and other information from a range of sources