MS&E 444
Investment Practice
a finance
project class.
Spring 2011 |
Instructor: Kay
Giesecke, Huang Engineering Center 307 CA: Gerald Teng, Huang 141P Weekly Team Meetings: Wednesdays 4:15-5:30, Y2E2111 |
06/09/2011:
The projects for the 2011 class have been completed and are available here:
Group 1: Optimal Hedge Ratios for Credit vs. Equity Trades (updated)
Group 2: Capital Structure Arbitrage - Implied Index Trading
Group 3: On Estimating Recovery Rates
Group 4: Optimal Hedging of Interest Rate Exposure Given Credit
Correlation
Group 5: The Implication of Merger & Acquisition Activity on CDS
Spreads
Thank you for all your hard work and best of luck with your future studies!
04/06/2011:
Hopefully by now you have formed your teams and started working on your
projects.
The class will meet each week on Wednesday starting April 6 in
Huang 306,
except for April 20 and May 4 when we will be
in Huang 11. Each team will be allocated
15 minutes starting from 4:15 and ending at 5:30
in team order i.e. Team 1 meets from
4:15-4:30, Team 2 meets from 4:30-4:45, etc. Given the tight schedule time
limits will be
strictly enforced, so it is important that you are punctual and don't run over
time. In order
to do this it is important that you are well prepared to discuss your current
progress and
any issues or potential problems you have come across.
If you have any further issues you wish to discuss you may attend Kay's
office hours, arrange
office hours with myself or send us an email.
03/23/2011:
First week of class to be held MW 4:15PM - 5:30PM, Location: Y2E2111. After
that
there will be only team meetings once a week on Wednesdays.
In order to be accepted in this class, in addition to registering on Axess you also need to
fill out an application
form. Please fill this form out and bring it to the first class or email
it to giesecke@stanford.edu by 2pm on Tuesday 3/29/2011 at the latest.
Since this is a project-oriented class there are no formal weekly lectures
however there
will be 2 mandatory sessions at the beginning of the term to discuss the
projects:
-The first class will be held on Monday March 28 at Y2E2111 during which we
will explain the mechanics of the class.
-The second class on Wednesday March 30 will have Benn from Overland Advisors
give an introduction to the suggested projects. -The list of suggested projects
can be found here.
Please make sure to attend both of these classes.
2/ Final Project presentations will be due TBD
Project presentations will consist of 10 min talks + 10 min QA
Written reports will be due on: TBA
3/ Please also be sure to submit the application form to be considered for the class.
Work in small teams on cool projects developed with San Francisco based
hedge fund. No prior knowledge in finance necessary (won't hurt), but strong
quantitative skills for tackling data-rich problems are key. Projects include
optimal hedge ratios, credit and volatility analysis, recovery rate models,
etc. See 2009
website for examples.
Teams (up to 4-5 people) should have a broad range of skills. If you don't
have
a team already, then come to the first class to network and form a team.
Limited enrollment so please submit application
form to apply for registration.
Strong undergraduates welcome.
Since the enrollment in this class is limited (to approximately 30
students),
we ask each student to submit an application, and then by March 29th we'll let
people know which teams were selected via email, and this website.
Please download
the application form, fill it out, and return it before the
given deadline.
Available here.
Projects developed in collaboration with the hedge fund Overland Advisors.
VIX (volatility index) from the CBOE Indexes database.
Options prices from the OptionMetrics database.
Earnings announcements from the FirstCall database.
NYSE Trade and Quote (TAQ) database.