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Foundations of Finance, by Keown, Martin and Petty, (Pearson Custom Business Resources, 2019). This is a custom book that includes only the chapters that we will cover. This book will be much less expensive than typical textbooks.
Optional:
Business Finance Note Guide, 17th edition, by Anthony Byrd, (Pearson Learning Solutions, 2018). Royalties will go to UCF Foundation, Inc.
Recommended Reading
The Wall Street Journal is recommended reading for all business students. You will be able to subscribe to the Journal at special student rates.
Financial Calculators
We will discuss ways of solving problems using business calculators. These exercises will enable you to become proficient with calculators and will enhance your learning experience greatly.
The recommended calculator is the Hewlett Packard 10BII+ Financial Calculator. You should be able to find this calculator for about $30-$35 at bookstores and local office supply stores. This calculator will suffice for this course (and other courses in the business curriculum) since it allows students to input cash flows and calculate internal rates of return and net present values. There are other calculators which have these capabilities, although we may not be familiar with them. Based on my experience over the past several semesters, I strongly recommend the Hewlett Packard 10BII+. You can find a list of dealers and other support for the calculator at http://www.hp.com (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. It’s available from the HP website for $29.99. Click on “displays & accessories” at the top of the page, then “view more” and then “calculators.”
Students who do not have a financial calculator with the capabilities similar to the 10BII+ will be at a considerable disadvantage.
Note: Smart phones, graphing calculators, and large-screen programmable calculators will not be allowed in this course.
It is very important that you know how to use your calculator by the time we get to Exam #2. If you do not have the manual, you can download it from the web. The website is printed on the back of most calculators. I will also provide an online PowerPoint tutorial for the HP10BII+.
Course Description
Whether seeking a career in finance, real estate, economics, marketing, accounting, or any other business area, a well-educated business graduate will be expected to have a broad understanding of finance.
Finance begins with basic skills topics such as the time value of money and understanding financial statements. Considerable effort will be spent on mastering time value of money. These skills will be needed throughout the course and will have numerous applications in your personal financial planning.
The second part of the course introduces important investment topics such as risk and return, stocks, and bonds. These topics build as we go through the course and prepare you for the final part of the course. This part of the course focuses on several important corporate finance topics, such as the cost of raising capital, how firms make capital investment decisions, how they finance those investments, and how they make dividend, stock buyback and stock split decisions.
Like other core courses, IB Finance is designed to be a REAL course – in other words, Relevant Engaged Active Learning.
The success of each student will depend largely on the amount of preparation done before and after class. Due to the rigorous nature of this course, a great deal of preparation will be required. Please do not procrastinate!! If you don’t get behind, I think you will really enjoy this course!
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
- Interpret and analyze financial statements. (comprehension)
- Solve time value of money problems. (application)
- Use bond and stock valuation techniques. (application)
- Analyze risk and return tradeoffs. (analysis)
- Perform basic capital budgeting analyses. (analysis)
- Interpret basic capital structure theories. (comprehension)
- Contrast dividend policy theories. (evaluation)
Grading
Grades will be determined by quizzes, exams, and online modules. The tentative weights are below.
| Exam 1 | 15% |
| Exam 2 | 20% |
| Exam 3 | 20% |
| Comprehensive Final Exam | 20% |
| Quizzes | 10% |
|
In-Class Activities/HW |
15% |
| Total | 100% |
Grading Scale: A = (90 to 100) C = (70 to 79) F = (0 to 59)
B = (80 to 89) D = (60 to 69)