091EC - FINANCIAL MARKETS AND INSTITUTIONS 2021
Schema della sezione
-
Keep an eye on this section for the latest news about this course!
24/05 - If you want to self-assess your readiness for the final exam, here you can find a GoogleForm (anonymous) with a battery of multiple choice questions and a handful of exercises to test your knowledge and skills. Exercises take some time, and the use spreadsheets will make them easier. Each right/wrong answer will be automatically scored, and you'll get a final assessment of your readiness, including questions where you got that wrong or you did not know the answer. The maximum score is 110, so it's easy to convert it in expected exam performance: 66/110 is 18/30, 77/110 is 21/30, 88/110 is 24/30, 99/110 is 27/30, and so on.
03/05 - Back again with our planning issues. Due to the OpenDay, we lost 2 more hours of classes. Together with holidays, we are now 1 hour short for the 45 hours planned for this course. I have found a date/time/room that are free for a final recovery session. It can be on the 20th May (Friday), 14.00-16.00, in Room 3_B of Building D (as for the other recovery sessions). We will talk about it tomorrow, and see if this actually fits your agenda, before changing the calendar.
02/05 - I have updated the presentation used by Bank of Italy in the seminar of a few days ago. As you know, unfortunately for our foreign students, everything is in Italian.
25/04 - Attention please! The University cancelled all lectures taking place on the next Wednesday, to allow undergraduate students to attend the open-day for post-graduate courses. Therefore I had to revise, once again :-( , our workplan. I am sorry that your year was so unlucky, but as you can see it is not my fault, and there's little I can do about it...
20/04 - We have the first confirmed guest speaker! On 18th May, Angelo Ciavarella will show up from London and entertain us on his long trading experience and on macrotrends influencing financial markets. I am quite confident that we will also have another guest speaker (on ESG/SRI), not so sure about a third one (on commodities/Islamic finance)... I'll let you know.
04/04 - I updated the workplan due to a couple of clerical errors that mistakenly put classes on the two next holiday Mondays. Moreover, on the 26th of April the department will host a seminar from the Bank of Italy presenting their internal rating system for non-financial firms. It will take place in Room 1_A from 5 PM, but will also be accessible from Teams (link will be pulished here as soon as possible). The seminar is not part of our classes, but I invite you to attend since the topics are related to this course, and the speakers are highly distinguished. The seminar will be held in Italian language (sorry for our foreign students...). No news yet on our seminars for the last three classes: still working on those.
08/03 - As discussed, we will host two recovery classes on Friday, 18th March and 25th March, from 14 to 16. We were assigned Room 3_B in Building D for this. The agenda is updated accordingly.
28/02 - Online classes: check this TEAM.
23/02 - Moodle Page created
-
Year 2020/2021, second semester, ECTS: 6, 45 hours
Code: 091EC - FINANCIAL MARKETS AND INSTITUTIONS - FINANCIAL MARKETS AND INSTITUTIONS (SECS P/11)
Main topics
- Structure and functioning of financial markets
- Interest rates: economic and financial role, determinants and structure
- Efficiency of financial markets: evidence and economic consequences
- Money markets
- Bond markets and bond evaluation
- Stock markets and stock evaluation
- Foreign currencies and international financial markets
- The economic role of financial institutions
- Financial crisis: nature and economic impact
- The role of central banks and monetary policy
- Banks: structure, role and performance
- Mutual funds
- Other intermediaries: insurance companies, pension funds and the securities' industry
- Financial risk management through derivatives
Textbook
Mishkin F.S. and Eakins S.G. (2018), Financial markets and institutions, Pearson, 9th Edition
Additionally, it is advised to constantly read and interpret specialised newspapers and autonomously extend the knowledge by reading the bibliographic references suggested by the textbook. Finally, it is useful to check the online material offered by the editor of the textbook.
ILOs
This course aims at introducing the functioning of financial markets and the role they play in an economy, with particular attention at the main financial institutions and the products and services that they trade. The course focuses mainly on international markets, however with frequent references to specific countries (Europe, US, Rest of the World), for the purpose of evidencing similarities and differences, and of underlining the importance of international relationships between markets and institutions.
Knowledge and understanding:
- knowing why financial markets and institutions exist, how they function and how they are structured and organised
- knowing the main constraints affecting the functioning of financial markets and institutions, especially towards information asymmetries and financial crisis
- knowing the main contractual features of the leading financial products and services
- knowing similarities and differences of financial markets and institutions at the international level
Applying knowledge and understanding:
- describing the main features of financial markets and institutions
- describing the mechanics and the main distortions caused by information asymmetries and financial crisis
- applying evaluation tools on financial products and services
- describing financial intermediation at the international level
Making judgments:
- evaluating differences in risk and return of the main financial instruments
- evaluating the performance of the main classes of financial intermediaries
- selecting financial markets and institutions consistently with the financial needs of families and firms
Communication skills:
- understanding and applying the technical language specific to financial markets and institutions
- expressing knowledge and critical opinions effectively on the main features of financial instruments, markets and institutions
Learning skills:
- autonomously research relevant data on financial instruments, markets and institutions
- autonomously manage and interpret financial data
Preconditions: Financial Mathematics, Macroeconomics
Propedeuticities: Accounting.
Teaching methods
Most lectures follow the traditional front-lesson approach, however encouraging the active participation of students and the joint discussion of market data and business cases. Moreover, the course involves a number of class exercises, as well as a limited number of numerical simulations and role-playing games. Finally, the lecturer will organize one or two seminars delivered by experts or operators in financial markets.
There are no differences in terms of exam, grading or teaching materials for students that choose not to attend classes. However, the latter are encouraged to get in touch with the lecturer if they need further explanations or additional readings on this course's topics.
Exam and Grading
Grading is based on a final oral exam, based on three questions (duration varies between 10 and 30 minutes, and it is the shorter the better the student is prepared):
1. topic chosen by the student
2. topic chosen by the lecturer, on an insight on the same topic or on a different topic (for non-attending students only)
3. one insight consisting in a comment to financial news, an exercise, a critical remark on links across topics of this course.
Grading follows the following criteria:
- failure: basic concepts are not understood in full or are incoherent, no proficiency in basic technical language
- range 18-21: basic concepts are sufficiently understood, the basic technical language is used with proficiency, ability to solve simple numerical exercises
- range 22-25: good understanding of basic concepts and sufficient understanding of more advanced topics, good proficiency in basic technical language and sufficient proficiency in advanced terminology, ability to solve simple exercises, sufficient ability to link different topics of this course and to comment financial news
- range 26-28: great understanding of basic concepts and good understanding of advanced topics, great proficiency in basic technical language and good proficiency in advanced terminology, ability to solve complex numerical exercises, good ability to link different topics of this course and to interpret financial news
- range 29-30 with honors: great understanding of basic and advanced topics, great proficiency in basic and advanced technical language, ability to solve complex numerical exercises, great ability to link different topics of this course and to interpret financial news.
GRADING GRID
CONCEPTS
LANGUAGE
EXERCISES
LINKING TOPICS
FINANCIAL NEWS
BASIC
ADV.
BASIC
ADV.
BASIC
ADV.
Insuff.
Insuff.
Insuff.
18-21
Suffic.
Suffic.
Y
22-25
Good
Suffic.
Good
Suffic.
Y
Suffic.
Suffic.
26-28
Great
Good
Great
Good
Y
Y
Good
Good
29-30WH
Great
Great
Great
Great
Y
Y
Great
Great
-
Any changes will be announced as early as possible. Last update: 03/05/2022
Classes are held in Room 2A, in H3 - (Monday, 13-15; Wednesday, 10-12) - unless stated otherwise
DAY TIME TOPIC HRS 2/3 10-12 Course presentation. Overview of financial markets 2 7/3 13-15 Overview of financial markets 2 9/3 10-12 Interest rates 2 14/3 13-15 Interest rates 2 16/3 10-12 Market efficiency and behavioural finance 2 18/3 14-16 RECOVERY - ROOM 3_B (Building D) - Market efficiency and behavioural finance 2 21/3 13-15 Money markets 2 23/3 10-12 Bonds markets. 2 25/3 14-16 RECOVERY - ROOM 3_B (Building D) - Stock markets. 2 28/3 13-15 Stock markets 2 30/3 10-12 Mortgage markets 2 4/4 13-15 The Forex 2 6/4 10-12 The Forex 2 11/4 13-15 Central banks and monetary policy 2 13/4 10-12 Central banks and monetary policy 2 18/4 NO LESSON! 20/4 10-12 Banks 2 25/4 NO LESSON! 27/4 10-12 NO LESSON! 2/5 13-15 Mutual funds. Insurance and pensions 2 4/5 10-12 Insurance and pensions. 2 9/5 13-15 Securities' industry 2 11/5 10-12 Other intermediaries 2 16/5 13-15 Derivatives 2 18/5 10-12 Seminar (A. Ciavarella): trading and macrotrends in financial markets 2 20/5
23/514-16
13-15RECOVERY - ROOM 3_B (Building D) - Derivatives
Seminar (S. Piserà): ESG-SRI2
225/5 10-12 Derivatives. Q&A. Course end. 2 -
Here you can find presentations, readings and other useful teaching materials.