Mathmatics85
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this unit seems to have a lot to read. one of the readings for next week has almost 300 pages. are we really meant to read them all?
anyone doing FIN310 this sem?? (1 Viewer)
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Mathmatics85
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I am hating this unit already. I understand this unit talks about current issues and all, but is unorganised.
Everyweek you check the blackboard different files are uploaded and some files are gone in the same week. I mean fucking week 5 is coming and I still have to fucking check week 2 and 3 folder to see if anything has changed.
Also we have our so called early sem test next monday, and I found out exercise questions and solutions were only uploaded today or yesterday or some shit. the convenor said in the first lecture any test we will sit he'll make it challanging. and if at least he was going to make them challenging how about upload those exercise files early so we have more time to practice.
Everyweek you check the blackboard different files are uploaded and some files are gone in the same week. I mean fucking week 5 is coming and I still have to fucking check week 2 and 3 folder to see if anything has changed.
Also we have our so called early sem test next monday, and I found out exercise questions and solutions were only uploaded today or yesterday or some shit. the convenor said in the first lecture any test we will sit he'll make it challanging. and if at least he was going to make them challenging how about upload those exercise files early so we have more time to practice.
chocoholiccc
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I think i might be needing a tutor for dis unit! anyone knows where can i find one??
any of u know wat the mid-sem exam on monday's gonna be like? wat topics n all? he didn't put up any practice questions, did he?
any of u know wat the mid-sem exam on monday's gonna be like? wat topics n all? he didn't put up any practice questions, did he?
hungryaussieyum
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I don't think this course is going to change. It has been like this for a very long time. However I suspect it once had an easy exam pre 2008.This subject isn't hard its just poorly organised like who gives a damn attitude. Having done the mid sem for it in this year, I see a lot of problems with this subject.
For future FIN310 students here is some advice for the mid sem.
1.Don't bother with all the theory - that's probably for final exam. Study all the calculations found in the lecture slides. This includes worst case default rate, calculating confidence intervals, studying ahead of time and studying binomial model from a proper textbook. You won't understand the general concept of binomial from the shitty incomplete lecture notes. franks stochastic lecture notes usually contains loads of typos. this also includes the proofs as well.
Every NON Actuarial/math student will have no chance in understanding (given the time needed to study it impossible) Ito's Lemma, Brownian motion, and basically everything topic of stochastic calculus and finance etc. A grounding for university level mathematics education is a must for understanding the notation such as the commonly used notation of partial differentiation. I don't get why they don't include maths in as a core subject as part of the degree in finance/economics.
Stat170 teaches nothing btw.
I believe Actuarial/math students will find Ito's lemma etc real easy because they have to do it anyways in other acst305 etc for example.
So basically the student with no background in university level mathematics will automatically lose at least 5% of their total assessment marks. FIN310 is a crappy subject anyways. Along with econ232 econ 200 and econ210(worst subject ever)
This is a course in which you try so hard and panic only to discover all that you studied the wrong thing. Also I believe marking in this subject is highly subjective. Even in exam questions they test you about opinions from an article.
Overall mid sem exam written by franks and trueck is really dodgy and unethical.
Loads of typos in there too with unreasonable questions. For so many years e.franks never wants to correct his typos in his lecture notes. Everyone sees it and goes wtf, 5 minute notes done at breakfast. Macquarie has some real serious ethical problem employing staff like that.
The course stresses that you have to go your own yards to learn. 'Why is that?' you may ask.
I don't want to make a new thread for this but:
Only 1% of finance grads actually land that graduate job, the job they wanted. Real finance jobs are competitive no shit. (loads of phony finance job out there).
I believe even some of the academic staff have trouble obtaining employment, including those who have Phds(poor communication skills) They usually move around from uni to uni because they aren't good enough.
The message that you get implicitly from attending lectures and is like this: don't bother enrolling in finance degrees, the job market is competitive. It's like lecturer almost spouted out 'even I didn't get a good job so how can you'.
p.s Learning statistics and mathematics at higher level > useless degrees.
Finance degrees are practically worthless. especially at undergraduate level.
Australian universities esp in NSW are marketing and boasting how great degrees are. Look at the marketing strategy - profit maximising has some serious concerns over quality of degree programs.
For future FIN310 students here is some advice for the mid sem.
1.Don't bother with all the theory - that's probably for final exam. Study all the calculations found in the lecture slides. This includes worst case default rate, calculating confidence intervals, studying ahead of time and studying binomial model from a proper textbook. You won't understand the general concept of binomial from the shitty incomplete lecture notes. franks stochastic lecture notes usually contains loads of typos. this also includes the proofs as well.
Every NON Actuarial/math student will have no chance in understanding (given the time needed to study it impossible) Ito's Lemma, Brownian motion, and basically everything topic of stochastic calculus and finance etc. A grounding for university level mathematics education is a must for understanding the notation such as the commonly used notation of partial differentiation. I don't get why they don't include maths in as a core subject as part of the degree in finance/economics.
Stat170 teaches nothing btw.
I believe Actuarial/math students will find Ito's lemma etc real easy because they have to do it anyways in other acst305 etc for example.
So basically the student with no background in university level mathematics will automatically lose at least 5% of their total assessment marks. FIN310 is a crappy subject anyways. Along with econ232 econ 200 and econ210(worst subject ever)
This is a course in which you try so hard and panic only to discover all that you studied the wrong thing. Also I believe marking in this subject is highly subjective. Even in exam questions they test you about opinions from an article.
Overall mid sem exam written by franks and trueck is really dodgy and unethical.
Loads of typos in there too with unreasonable questions. For so many years e.franks never wants to correct his typos in his lecture notes. Everyone sees it and goes wtf, 5 minute notes done at breakfast. Macquarie has some real serious ethical problem employing staff like that.
The course stresses that you have to go your own yards to learn. 'Why is that?' you may ask.
I don't want to make a new thread for this but:
Only 1% of finance grads actually land that graduate job, the job they wanted. Real finance jobs are competitive no shit. (loads of phony finance job out there).
I believe even some of the academic staff have trouble obtaining employment, including those who have Phds(poor communication skills) They usually move around from uni to uni because they aren't good enough.
The message that you get implicitly from attending lectures and is like this: don't bother enrolling in finance degrees, the job market is competitive. It's like lecturer almost spouted out 'even I didn't get a good job so how can you'.
p.s Learning statistics and mathematics at higher level > useless degrees.
Finance degrees are practically worthless. especially at undergraduate level.
Australian universities esp in NSW are marketing and boasting how great degrees are. Look at the marketing strategy - profit maximising has some serious concerns over quality of degree programs.
Last edited:
Take it to the fin310 message boards man.. theres a nice thread growing there.
Nah finance degrees aren't useless.. Its just unis like ours who insist on setting ridiculous exams and teaching useless shit we cant even use in interview questions. How do i know this? i got mates who are all finishing this year, and luckily for them strive for knowledge outside of uni.. And they say alot of the shit they learn is completely useless for the technicals they ask you.
This shit needs to stop man, too many subjects are like this...
Nah finance degrees aren't useless.. Its just unis like ours who insist on setting ridiculous exams and teaching useless shit we cant even use in interview questions. How do i know this? i got mates who are all finishing this year, and luckily for them strive for knowledge outside of uni.. And they say alot of the shit they learn is completely useless for the technicals they ask you.
This shit needs to stop man, too many subjects are like this...
Mathmatics85
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yeah.
some exams are just cruel.
thinking of how I went through some of the exams (accg200, 340, and BUSL320), I have to agree some exams are set at such a crazy level...
mid-sem tests are much worse than finals..for me anyways...
I really need to graduate...getting exhausted from tests/exams.
some exams are just cruel.
thinking of how I went through some of the exams (accg200, 340, and BUSL320), I have to agree some exams are set at such a crazy level...
mid-sem tests are much worse than finals..for me anyways...
I really need to graduate...getting exhausted from tests/exams.
Are you guys gonna complain?
There seems to be a growing number of disgruntled students on the fin310 board and it seems to resonate from a girl named Jenny Haquinus..personally i wouldnt mind putting my name next to a petition.
What are you guys gonna do?
There seems to be a growing number of disgruntled students on the fin310 board and it seems to resonate from a girl named Jenny Haquinus..personally i wouldnt mind putting my name next to a petition.
What are you guys gonna do?
hungryaussieyum
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nothing's gonna happen. Lol the board is flooded with complaints.
The course has always been disorganised for many years. But however a friend had told me long ago there used to be an easier exam.
Its a shit capstone unit. This years exam was probably the worst.
I want to see Edwin Franks and Stefan Trueck fired along with Michael Olive(econ200), Geoff Kingston(econ360) and Samantha Sin (ACCG100). These lecturers make university shit. There is lack of communication and enthusiasm with the subject they teach. They don't want to log onto blackboard and communicate.
Who gives a damn eh?
The only decent lecturers are Michael Dobbie, Alan Mcharg, Wylie Bradford,David westcott, and Sean turnell(shows enthusiasm but assessment tasks perhaps too broad).
Even though EFS is the largest division here, it also is the weakest academically.
Student-staff ratios are horrid, and most exams are just plug in formulas, and they want to punish you if you forget the formula. ACCG 329 had a useless formula sheet.
The course has always been disorganised for many years. But however a friend had told me long ago there used to be an easier exam.
Its a shit capstone unit. This years exam was probably the worst.
I want to see Edwin Franks and Stefan Trueck fired along with Michael Olive(econ200), Geoff Kingston(econ360) and Samantha Sin (ACCG100). These lecturers make university shit. There is lack of communication and enthusiasm with the subject they teach. They don't want to log onto blackboard and communicate.
Who gives a damn eh?
The only decent lecturers are Michael Dobbie, Alan Mcharg, Wylie Bradford,David westcott, and Sean turnell(shows enthusiasm but assessment tasks perhaps too broad).
Even though EFS is the largest division here, it also is the weakest academically.
Student-staff ratios are horrid, and most exams are just plug in formulas, and they want to punish you if you forget the formula. ACCG 329 had a useless formula sheet.
blackrider89
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Practically there would be no change at all. For all units. We can just derive it from the fact that in any unit outline they state that if there are more than 20% of students fail, the lecturer (in charge) will have to explain or some crap like that. And in practice, almost all units have the fail rate of a bit (some much) more than 20% all the time (at least for (the) Faculty of Business and Economics). So what, even the uni doesn't seem to 2 be consistent. They just do nothing but endlessly promise.
Some lecturers such as Ryle Perera, Roslinda Lim...don't even try to make the students understand what they talk;the repeated mistakes in notes and unit outlines/announcements... . To be fair, their English is not crap (maybe better than u Oz guys somewhat) but their pronunciation is hopeless with delivering a lecture. I don't think they should fire them coz to be employed 4 such a long time those guys must be good somehow. But for heaven's sake, they should only stick to the merely academic side, like doing research...(oh very good, at least they would help our respectable Vice-Chancellor fulfill his promise-ours will be 1 of 8 leading research unis in Oz and in top 200 of the Shanghai Jiaotong Universities rankings)...
And they should integrate some period of internship to help students. This suggestion may also be for the rest of Oz unis. Even in a country like mine (with a shit education), ppl have internship (not 4 some students like here). Why here not?
Apologize in advance if my English confuses u guys coz to write such a long comment I may make some mistakes and confusing sentences/ideas.
Some lecturers such as Ryle Perera, Roslinda Lim...don't even try to make the students understand what they talk;the repeated mistakes in notes and unit outlines/announcements... . To be fair, their English is not crap (maybe better than u Oz guys somewhat) but their pronunciation is hopeless with delivering a lecture. I don't think they should fire them coz to be employed 4 such a long time those guys must be good somehow. But for heaven's sake, they should only stick to the merely academic side, like doing research...(oh very good, at least they would help our respectable Vice-Chancellor fulfill his promise-ours will be 1 of 8 leading research unis in Oz and in top 200 of the Shanghai Jiaotong Universities rankings)...
And they should integrate some period of internship to help students. This suggestion may also be for the rest of Oz unis. Even in a country like mine (with a shit education), ppl have internship (not 4 some students like here). Why here not?
Apologize in advance if my English confuses u guys coz to write such a long comment I may make some mistakes and confusing sentences/ideas.
Mathmatics85
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yeah, since the final is 90% now, poor performance in final=autofail:jaw:
chocoholiccc
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is he in his rite mind set to make da finals 90%??? :S
i dont even know how to prepare for dis unit!
i dont even know how to prepare for dis unit!
Hey guys I did FIN310 last year. Stefan Trueck is a great lecturer compared to Edwin. The subject is hard to study for without a guideline (even if it's vague) and we got that only in week 13. So up until then, everyone was clueless and having a heart attack. We only had one mid-semester worth 25% and the final was 75% - and I liked it that way.
For our final exam we had 20-25MC and then 5 questions, you must answer 3 out of 5. The questions were composed of two-topics put together. Because I'm feeling generous I'll give you guys a sample question I've got here from last year (for the final) just to give you an idea of the type of stuff expected. Note that Edwin might change this altogether, but he is lazy so you never know:
(P.S. I'll be uploading all my material onto the FIN310 discussion board some time later this semester)
Question 2
1) Consider a portfolio with $800,000 in Stock A and $200,000 in Stock B. Daily volatilities are 2% for A and 4% for B. The coef. corr. between their returns is 0.5. Assume they're normally distributed with mean zero.
a) What is 99% VaR for Stock A?
b) What is 99% VaR for the portfolio?
c) By how much does diversification reduce the VaR?
2) Explain the two risk measures VaR and Expected Short-fall. What are the differences between the two measures? What is an advantage of the Expected Shortfall over VaR? Provide a figure to illustrate that the two portfolios with the same VaR can have a different expected shortfall.
3) What is mark to market risk management? Explain with two examples of m2m valuation. Relate it to realized and unrealized daily profit/loss.
4) Give a thorough description of the model building (var-covar) approach and Monte Carlo simulation for calculating VaR. Compare the two approaches - what are common properties and the main differences between the two?
For our final exam we had 20-25MC and then 5 questions, you must answer 3 out of 5. The questions were composed of two-topics put together. Because I'm feeling generous I'll give you guys a sample question I've got here from last year (for the final) just to give you an idea of the type of stuff expected. Note that Edwin might change this altogether, but he is lazy so you never know:
(P.S. I'll be uploading all my material onto the FIN310 discussion board some time later this semester)
Question 2
1) Consider a portfolio with $800,000 in Stock A and $200,000 in Stock B. Daily volatilities are 2% for A and 4% for B. The coef. corr. between their returns is 0.5. Assume they're normally distributed with mean zero.
a) What is 99% VaR for Stock A?
b) What is 99% VaR for the portfolio?
c) By how much does diversification reduce the VaR?
2) Explain the two risk measures VaR and Expected Short-fall. What are the differences between the two measures? What is an advantage of the Expected Shortfall over VaR? Provide a figure to illustrate that the two portfolios with the same VaR can have a different expected shortfall.
3) What is mark to market risk management? Explain with two examples of m2m valuation. Relate it to realized and unrealized daily profit/loss.
4) Give a thorough description of the model building (var-covar) approach and Monte Carlo simulation for calculating VaR. Compare the two approaches - what are common properties and the main differences between the two?