MA477A: Quantitative Financial Risk Management (Fall 2020)

Calendar Description

This course will introduce students to a variety of topics in risk management. The defining feature of this course is that it will cover topics that are not typically covered in the traditional mathematical finance curriculum. As such it will be an important differentiator for the program. Topics might include (but will not necessarily be limited to) some of the following:

● Introduction to risk measures such as value at risk (VaR), conditional tail expectation and expected shortfall.
● Introduction to credit scoring.
● Introduction to economic and regulatory capital modelling, especially as it relates to compliance with Basel III.
● Advanced treatment of hedging derivatives portfolios.
● Introduction to credit risk models such as the Merton and/or Black-Cox models, as well as linear factor models and alternative models of dependence (e.g. copulate).

Prerequisites

MA270, MA307 or MA371, ST260.

Instructor

Professor Mark Reesor (PhD)
Office: LH3049 (Lazaridis Hall)
Office Hours:  Mondays and Wednesdays 2:30-3:50 or By Appointment
E: mreesor@wlu.ca

Lectures

To be delivered asynchronously via recordings

Textbook

John C. Hull. Risk Management and Financial Institutions, 5^th Edition. Wiley, 2018.

Calculators

Students may use a non-programmable, non-graphing calculator on course tests and the final examination.

MyLearningSpace

Materials related to this course and the full course outline will be posted on the MA477 MyLearningSpace website. You are responsible for checking here on a regular basis for important announcements.

Evaluation

A final mark out of 100 will be calculated as follows:

• Assignments: 35%
• Midterm Test : 25%
• Final Exam (2.5 hours, exact date, time and location to be announced): 40%

This document is a summary of the course outline for MA477 and is provided for the convenience of students.