BUSA 3150 - Business Finance

Description

BUSA 3150 is an introduction to financial management for the business students. The course will create a solid foundation for the fundamental concepts of finance for all students in business major. The goal of the course is to introduce the core concepts of finance in a way that connects the student to his or her personal financial experience and then uses such experiences as a springboard into the world of corporate finance. Students are expected to develop the skills to make the types of comparisons among loan options, investments, projects, and so on that turn them into knowledgeable, confident financial consumers and managers. By learning to apply the core concepts of financial management, students are expected to make connections with the real world, with careers, and with different kinds of businesses.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the cycle of money, distinguish the main areas of finance, and explain the different ways of classifying financial markets;
• Explain the main objectives of a financial manager and understand the main legal categories of business organizations;
• Explain the foundations of the balance sheet and income statement and use the cash flow identity to explain firms cash flows as well;
• Understand common-size financial statements, calculate financial ratios, and compare different company performances using financial ratios;
• Understand the time value of money and explain future values and compounding, present values and discounting, as well as interest rates and compounding frequencies ;
• Explain annuities and perpetuities and determine the present and future values of different type of cash flows;
• Understand basic bond terminology and determine the value of different types of bonds: annual bonds, semiannual bonds, and zero-coupon bonds;
• Explain the relationship between the coupon rate and the yield to maturity and analyze bond prices and yields;
• Explain the basic characteristics of stock and stock markets;
• Calculate the price of preferred stock and common stock given a history of dividend payments;
• Establish the intuition for understanding the trade-off between risk and return and explain the distinction between diversifiable and systematic risk;
• Develop portfolio risk, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), beta, and the security market line;
• Explain capital budgeting process and assess the valuation techniques of investment decisions.