Introduction to Capital Markets

This course is designed for first and second year undergraduate students and has no prerequisites. Students will utilize either Excel or a programming language such as Python, R, or Matlab to solve a financial market problem. A competition will begin shortly after students have had time to improve upon the given solution. Examples include:

• Exploring the effect of short-term volatility on long-term returns
• Using moving averages to produce trading signals
• Trading cryptocurrencies

Special thanks to Brian Peterson for developing open source trading packages, quantstrat and blotter, as well as Joshua Ulrich, developer of the Free and Open Source Software package quantmod for finance.

The course also covers ethics in finance as well as finance careers. We will review the ethical and legal responsibilities of financial professionals using case studies published by the CFA Institute.

Textbook

Required Text: Standards of Practice Handbook 11E by CFA Institute
The textbook may be downloaded free of charge.