COURSE NUMBER:  MBA203.4B

COURSE TITLE:  Introduction to Finance

UNITS OF CREDIT:  2

INSTRUCTOR:  Mark Seasholes

E-MAIL ADDRESS:  mss@haas.berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION (HTTP URL): http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/mss/

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Monday/Wednesday 2:00 - 4:00 PM

PREREQUISITE(S):  none

CLASS FORMAT: a mixture of lectures and cases

REQUIRED READINGS:   textbook, cases, websites

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:   homework, class participation, midterm final

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:  This is an introductory MBA course in investments.  Students learn how to value assets given forecasts of future cash flows and about the risk characteristics of different asset classes. The first part of the course focuses on the time value of money.  The second part of the course deals with measuring and pricing risk.  Finally, the course touches on derivative-basics and capital market efficiency.  An effort will be made to tie the theoretical underpinnings of finance to real-world examples.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:  Mark Seasholes is an assistant professor of finance at the Haas School.  Next year he will teach the MBA "core finance" class as well as run a doctoral seminar.  His current research involves international, financial markets. Besides studying equity markets, he has recently completed an empirical study of sovereign bond prices in emerging markets.

Mark studied physics at Wesleyan University. After graduating from college, he spent a number of years working on Wall Street and in the emerging markets of East/Central Europe. More recently, he completed a valuation project in Honduras and helped with the Lloyds of London restructuring.