Quantitative Concepts

stijn in action

 

The coming modules pre-suppose some basic knowledge of following:
  • Accounting
  • Business Mathematics
  • Foundations of Finance
  • Markets and Instruments
  • Basics of Corporate Finance and valuation
  • Statistics
  • Options Theory
Most of you have probably encountered this material at some point, but may not have used all of it over the years and may therefore welcome a brief refresher. For some this material may well be new territory. They will help you get up to speed so that you and all your classmates begin the program of study with shared basic knowledge.

The Zoologic Online Learning Solutions (‘Zoologic’) website is offered to you to cover this material. Zoologic is a learning management system that offers a comprehensive suite of learning solutions for web-based delivery. The MSRM program has made available to you the entire Zoologic library of 200+ courses. You need not go through all of them before the program begins, but may use the site as a reference throughout the program.

Relevant topics for each module will be communicated with you during the pre-module phase. As a first step, you should log into Zoologic and complete the Assessment Test. It is designed to be a selfassessment tool to help you decide which areas you need to focus on. Based on your performance in the assessment test, you may choose to devote more time to certain topics. In addition, we have some recommended courses that will cover the topics mentioned above.

1. Accounting Essentials v2: Focusing primarily on financial accounting, with an emphasis on the investors' perspective, Accounting Essentials will teach you the logic and language behind the practice of accounting.

2. Business Math Boot Camp v2: This course is designed to establish a strong foundation in basic math skills. Business Math Boot Camp will teach you to use visual models like the probability tree; how to apply the technique of probabilistic modeling to real-life situations; analyze numerical data using a variety of techniques; describe the concepts underlying supply and demand curves; recognize and quantify risk; and explain the time value of money concepts, including compounding and discounting.

3. Calculus Essentials: This course will familiarize the learner with calculus. It starts with the idea of limit and ends with derivative functions. It also includes an application of limit in finance: continuous compounding. Upon completing this course you will be able to: define limit; discuss continuous compounding (an application of limit in finance); study the tangent problem to understand the definition of the derivative; know what functions are differentiable; and the derivative of a function through exercises; and discuss higher-order derivatives and partial derivatives.

4. Finance Essentials I: Through the story of a fictional retailer [N-Style] in a real-world simulation, you will explore the importance of time value of money, short-term financing, and the use of discounted cash flow [DCF] analysis to value a company.

5. Finance Essentials II: Again, using a real-world simulation of the fictional retailer N-Style, you will explore the dynamics of choosing appropriate long-term investments for a company, raising capital to finance those investments, and managing business risk. 5

6. Statistics Essentials v2: The basic concepts of statistics and probabilities are central to analyzing data and making effective business decisions. Completing Statistics Essentials will allow you to: calculate mean, variance, and standard deviation and use these measures analytically; apply fundamental concepts of a normal probability distribution; standardize a normal distribution to facilitate comparison between population samples; apply sampling distribution to assess a population’s statistics; construct and use hypothesis testing; understand how to test for differences between two populations, and how to use regression analysis.

7. Introduction to Forwards and Futures-NYU: This course explains the similarities and differences between forwards and futures contracts, and illustrates their basic components.

8. Introduction to Options-NYU: This course introduces options and explains how investors use them to implement various investment strategies.

9. Introduction to Swaps-NYU: This lesson will define the concept of a swap, discuss the elements of a swap, and will describe coupon exchange and talk about currency and asset swaps.

Log-in to Zoologic:

1. Select "Launch" below
2. Your Zoologic username is your Stern email address (netID@stern.nyu.edu.)
3. Password: zoologic (You can change the password after logging in.)

You can also navigate to Zoologic in a separate window here: http://services.zoologic.com/msrm/launch.html