Financial Engineering, Specialization Project

The students need to have their choice of specialization and project approved by the department during the semester before they want to take this specialization project. A list of possible projects will be available before the students need to choose specialization. Each project might have its own requirement for 4th year courses. The actual academic content will vary with the chosen project.

The course is mandatory for the students in their 5th year taking the Financial Engineering specialization. It will give students in-depth knowledge and competence to do independent analyses within the area. By financial engineering we mean employing financial economics and quantitative analysis approaches, to make pricing, investment, hedging/risk management and portfolio management decisions. The specialization is also broader than this, offering to write a project thesis on a specialized topic within the areas of finance, investment analysis/capital budgeting, econometrics, the operations and economics/finance interface, and financial management/accounting. Knowledge aquired in this course: Detailed knowledge on identifying, analysing, modelling, and applying and implementing solutions of topic-specific challenges within their chosen topic. Skills to structure challenges within investment, finance and financial management, challenges for business decision making especially in the interface between technology, business and economics. - Skills to choose an appropriate method to solve a problem - Skills to use appropriate tools to implement models and methods so that one can do business and economic analyses and discussion - The student will learn how to write a scientific report - The student will learn about, and practiced, how to search for relevant literature to gain completing knowledge - The student will have gained general knowledge about business analyses within investment appraisal/capital budgeting, finance and financial management. - The student will form a basis for communicating meaningfully to both economists and engineers about problems at the interface between engineering, business and economics.

After completing the course, the student should understand important analytical concepts, methods and models in finance and economics. Regarding research methodology, the student should be able to define a research question, apply a method, and understand and discuss results as well as being able to communicate the results and their implications. The candidate should also be able to present his/her own work as well as discuss other papers.

The project is a large written exercise, which often includes implementation of economic models, financial models, or financial management models on a computer. There will be regular supervision meetings in addition to the students indepentent work. The project is done alone or by a group of up to three students.