ACCT.6010 Accounting Information for Management Decisions (3cr)
Prerequisite: Student must be matriculated and must have completed foundation core courses. Focuses on the manager's view as opposed to the accountant's view of the decision process and related quantitative and qualitative information needs. The course material examines accounting information that will achieve faster, better, and cheaper operations. New strategic cost management models, such as ABC and target costing, are explored and contrasted with traditional cost approaches.
Notes:
If not currently matriculated in a Manning School of Business program, please contact the MBA staff at MBA@uml.edu or call 978-934-2848 for permission to take courses.
Requirements:
Pre-req: MBA; Foundation Core.
ACCT.6300 Taxation of Business Entities (3cr)
This course provides coverage of gross income and business deductions, and provides a comprehensive overview of the taxation of corporations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. This course will also cover the history of federal taxation, estate and gift taxes, and how the taxation of business entities fits into the entire tax system.
Requirements:
MSA or MBA;found.core;60.601
ACCT.6600 Accounting Data Analytics (3cr)
Topics to be covered in this course include managing and leaning data, building and evaluating models, visualizing the results of data analyses, and drawing conclusions from the analytics. A series of accounting topics with data analytics application will be discussed, such as fraud and earnings management detection, and financial statement analyses. Students should leave this course with skills necessary to understand data and manage data, to translate accounting and business problems into actionable proposals, and to present data/results to managers and data scientists.
ENTR.6350 Financing Innovation and Technology Ventures (3cr)
This course focuses on strategies for financing innovation and new technology ventures both within a firm and on a stand-alone basis. Topics covered will include: different types of business organizations; different sources of funding including internal sources and external sources such as angel investors, venture capitalists, etc.; short-term and long-term financial planning and forecasting; business valuation; term sheet negotiation and exit strategies including mergers and acquisitions and IPOs. Each aspect of the course will be covered within the context of a business plan and venture life-cycle.
FINA.6010 Corporate Finance (3cr)
Relates working capital strategy, capital investment analysis, long-term financing, and capital structure decisions in a risk-return framework to the dynamics of the firm and the market in which it operates.
Notes:
If not currently matriculated in a Manning School of Business program, please contact the MBA staff at MBA@uml.edu or call 978-934-2848 for permission to take courses.
Requirements:
MBA, MSA, MS ITE or MSF.
FINA.6020 Advanced Corporate Finance (3cr)
This course covers advanced topics of financial decision-making concepts such as financial restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, different forms of debt and equity financing, leasing, and real options. The course includes techniques to incorporate uncertainty in financial analysis, to hedge corporate risk, and to restructure a firm through leveraged buyouts or under bankruptcy protection. It also includes advanced topics such as real options, theories of behavioral corporate finance, and the process to navigate extraordinary financial situations such as financial restructuring and liquidation.
Notes:
If not currently matriculated in a Manning School of Business program, please contact the MBA staff at MBA@uml.edu or call 978-934-2848 for permission to take courses.
FINA.6110 Financial Statement Analysis (3cr)
This course introduces to students a comprehensive financial statement analysis and valuation framework that integrates financial reporting, financial analysis and valuation, and the application of this framework to fundamental analysis. This course provides students with hands-on experience in financial statement analysis. Students will be introduced to general tools of financial analysis, theoretical concepts, and practical valuation issues. By the end of the course, students should be comfortable with using firms financial statements to develop an understand of their performance and to establish a basis for making reasonable valuation estimates.
Requirements:
MBA, MSF, or MSA & Core Pre-req
FINA.6210 Securities and Portfolio Management (3cr)
This course analyzes the main concepts in investments with a focus on the role and functioning on equity markets. Specific topics include security types and how they are traded, portfolio theory, the capital assets pricing model, efficient market hypothesis, and investing in funds. The contents of this course, descriptive, theoretical, and applied, are designed to help you evaluate investment alternatives for various investment goals and critically analyze equity markets.
Notes:
If not currently matriculated in a Manning School of Business program, please contact the MBA staff at MBA@uml.edu or call 978-934-2848 for permission to take courses.
FINA.6220 Advanced Portfolio Management (3cr)
This course examines investment theory and practice as applicable to portfolio management and securities selection. Topics covered include identification of investor goals, recognizing investment opportunities, changing risk and return through asset allocation and portfolio formation, asset pricing models, valuation of basic securities, rebalancing of portfolios, and hedging.
Notes:
If not currently matriculated in a Manning School of Business program, please contact the MBA staff at MBA@uml.edu or call 978-934-2848 for permission to take courses.
Requirements:
MBA Found Core or MSA
FINA.6230 Security Analysis - Student Managed Fund (3cr)
This course provides practical investment management experience to students who manage the Student Managed Fund sponsored by the UMass Foundation. The course utilizes financial theory from previous classes and Bloomberg Terminals for practical security analysis. Student work in teams to research selected stocks and make presentations to the class.
Requirements:
Co-req: FINA.6210 Securities and Portfolio Management.
FINA.6240 Fixed Income Securities (3cr)
Financial securities whose valuation depends on interest rates, such as Treasury securities, municipal bonds, and corporate bonds are called Fixed Income Securities. In this course, students will learn how to value and manage the risk of these securities.
Requirements:
MBA, MSA, MS ITE or MSF.
FINA.6310 Empirical Methods in Finance (3cr)
This introductory course integrates financial data with empirical methods to enhance insights into individual companies as well as the entire market. Financial data analysis plays a crucial role in understanding companies' historical performance, forecasting future growth, benchmarking against rivals, and assessing the market. Topics include introduction to financial data, introduction to data analysis, output interpretation, and presentation of the findings.
FINA.6350 Programming for Finance (3cr)
This course introduces Python programming using examples for finance. Required financial knowledge is introduced as necessary, and the course does not require prior knowledge of programming. Exercises will include creating algorithms for financial models for valuing stock and bonds and evaluating the risk and return characteristics of individual assets and portfolios.
Requirements:
FINA.5010 Business Financial Analysis, or permission of graduate program coordinator.
FINA.6410 Cryptocurrency (3cr)
This course introduces students to the landscape of cryptocurrency. Students learn the core topics of mining, blockchain technology to allow them to better understand how this technology can change the way business operates.
FINA.6420 Decentralized Finance (DeFi) (3cr)
This course focuses on how banking, finance, stock markets, and general trade may be upended by some of the new technological aspects of DeFi. The financial world has been moving in the direction of DeFi for years with the increased interest in crowd funding, peer-to-peer lending, and the use of blockchain technologies. While spending significant time examining Ethereum and related blockchain technologies, the class takes the perspective of how these technologies can impact our modern world.
FINA.6610 Financial Risk Management (3cr)
This course deals with the theoretical and practical approaches to effective financial risk management. It covers risk management techniques for corporations and for management of equity, bond, derivatives and investment portfolios. Topics include measurement of corporate risk exposure, portfolio risk exposure and value at risk (VAR) for financial institutions; risk and diversification, modern portfolio theory, concentrated equity positions, portfolio benchmarking, the importance of asset allocations; market risk management, currency risk exposures, credit risk management, interest rate risks, and operational & integrated risk management; and computer applications.
Requirements:
FINA.6010
FINA.6710 CFA Exam Review (3cr)
This course is a focused review for the Level I of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Exam. Topics covered include Ethics, Economics, Quantitative Methods, Portfolio Management, Financial Statement Analysis, Corporate Finance, Financial Markets, Equity, Debt, Derivatives, and Alternative Investments. Sitting for the exam is not a requirement of the course.
Requirements:
FINA.6010 Corporate Finance, or FINA.6210 Security Analysis and Portfolio Management, or permission of graduate program coordinator.
FINA.6750 Financial Derivatives (3cr)
The primary emphases in this course are the valuation and practical application of derivatives for both hedging and speculation. Topics include the characteristics of options, forward contracts, futures, and swaps; arbitrage and the valuation of derivatives; creating value and profit diagrams; and the structure of the derivatives markets. Ethical and economic issues associated with the use of derivatives as reported in the current financial press are also covered.
Notes:
Matriculated MBA students with completed MBA Foundation Core; or permission of MBA Coordinator.
Requirements:
Matriculated MBA students
FINA.6880 Current Topics in Finance (3cr)
Topics of current interest in Finance. Subject matter to be announced in advance. For a current semester course title, please log on to ISIS, the Inter-Campus Student Information System.
Notes:
If not currently matriculated in a Manning School of Business program, please contact the MBA staff at MBA@uml.edu or call 978-934-2848 for permission to take courses.
Requirements:
MBA, MSA, MS ITE or MSF.
FINA.6910 International Financial Management (3cr)
The international dimension of the finance function of the firm. Financial constraints of the international environment and their effect on the standard concepts of financial management. The techniques of adapting risk analysis to the international situation. Study of international currency flows, monetary systems, forward cover and international banking policies.
Notes:
If not currently matriculated in a Manning School of Business program, please contact the MBA staff at MBA@uml.edu or call 978-934-2848 for permission to take courses.
Requirements:
Matriculated MBA students
MGMT.6150 International Business (3cr)
This course addresses the issues involved in doing business overseas, and how it differs form purely domestic business. It surveys the changing international business landscape, focusing on the opportunities and challenges that company decision makers face in the global marketplace, and the factors that influence their decision to internationalize. Special attention is given to the broad concept of globalization - of markets and production - multinational enterprises include: governments, central banks, financial markets, regional and multilateral institutions (e.g., World Band, IMF, WTO), and the role of individuals who shape the international environment.
MIST.6030 Database Management (3cr)
This course provides students with in-depth knowledge for modeling, designing, implementing, and managing database systems for operational and decision support purposes. Topics covered include relational database model, entity-relationship modeling, normalization, SQL language, data warehousing, data quality and integration, data and database administration, and object-oriented database.
Requirements:
MIST.6010 Management information systems, and
Matriculated MS Business Analytics, or Business
Analytics Certificate, or Permission of Program
Coordinator.
MIST.6060 Business Intelligence and Data Mining (3cr)
This Course introduces the concepts and technologies of business intelligence and data mining. The course studies how data-oriented business intelligence techniques can be used by organizations to gain competitive advantages, as well as how to design and develop these techniques. Topics include classification, clustering, association analysis, prediction, and text and web mining. Data-mining related ethical issues will also be discussed.
Requirements:
MIST.6010 Management information systems, and
Matriculated MS Business Analytics, or Business
Analytics Certificate, or Permission of Program
Coordinator.
MIST.6150 Data Quality for Business Analytics (3cr)
This course provides students with knowledge and skills to process data for business analytics. Topics include data quality requirement and data preparation for business analytics, impact of data quality on analytics, and methods for assessing and improving data quality in the context of business analytics.
Requirements:
MIST.6010 Management information systems, and Matriculated MS Business Analytics, or Business Analytics Certificate, or Permission of Program Coordinator.
POMS.6120 Statistics for Predictive Analytics (3cr)
This course introduces statistical methods and techniques for predictive analytics. This is part of the business-analytics umbrella of courses. The main focus of this course is on regression, a powerful and widely used predictive method. Topics covered include simple linear regression, multiple regression, variable selection, model diagnostics, and systems of regression equations. The course also covers classification techniques using statistical methods such as linear discriminant function and logistic regression. Spreadsheet software, such as MS Excel, and statistical software, such as SAS and R, will be heavily utilized.
Requirements:
POMS.6010 Operations Management, or
Matriculated MS Business Analytics, or Business
Analytics Certificate, or matriculated MS
Engineering Management, or permission of
program coordinator.
POMS.6220 Decision Analytics (3cr)
This course covers the three main facets of business analytics: descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. Students will gain the knowledge of managerial decision-making (commonly referred to as data analytics, decision support systems-DSS, data mining). Some of the business analytic topics covered include neural networks, decision trees, support vector machines, k-means, association rule mining, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Data Envelopment Analysis, expert systems, optimization, and simulation.
Requirements:
POMS.6010 Operations Management, or
Matriculated MS Business Analytics, or Business
Analytics Certificate, or matriculated MS
Engineering Management, or permission of
program coordinator.
POMS.6240 Analytical Decision Making Tools (3cr)
This course covers principles and techniques of applied mathematical modeling for managerial decision making. Emphasis is on the methods of prescriptive analytics, including optimization models, decision analysis, simulation modeling, and risk analysis. Problems studied will include applications in finance, health care, marketing, operations, and management. Cases studies will be used extensively to demonstrate the practical use of models to improve managerial decision making. In addition to developing and applying models, emphasis will be placed on explaining the models and interpreting their results.
Requirements:
POMS.6010 Operations Management, or
Matriculated MS Business Analytics, or Business
Analytics Certificate, or matriculated MS
Engineering Management, or permission of
program coordinator.