INTRO

When I did it?
​Spring 2024

ECTS credits

7,5​

Language

English (FIE400E) and Norwegian (FIE400N).

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Mandatory Activity?

We​​ had three mandatory work requirements (called: "problem sets). You can either get 1, 2 or 3 as score on them. 3 is top score, and you need to average a score of 2 to be able to take the exam. 

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Workload​

I didn't read the book, I felt that the classes and tasks/earlier exam sets was enough, so that "saved" me a lot of time. The mandatory "problem sets" was however awfully large and hard to do. I would recommend to team up with two others on the problem sets and split up the tasks to be able to do them faster. I did them alone, and I think I used 20-30 hours just on the first of the problem set (you had to use excel, which we didn't learn in classes). The second and third problem set was easier, but still a lot to do (maybe 10-15 hours each).​​​

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Lecturer

The lecturer for the spring 2024 course was ok, It was her second time having the course. ​

Powerpoints however was quite easy following and good made, so I just made them as my primary resource for reading. All lot of examples and all the formulas you need was included. You are also given a "cheat sheet" with formulas that you are allowed to use in the exam. ​​

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During class she usually read quite fast throught the presentation or skipped whole slides, but instead used the blackboard to draw up graphs, write and calculate things by hand. This made the pace much slower, but easier to follow along with. I liked it, but sometimes frustrating not knowing where in the slides we were sometimes when she was drawing on the blackboard. 

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Her english was understandable and clear. Often stopped for a moment to ask if there were any questions. Usually also explained a thing twice when she saw the confused looks of many students.

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Course Structure

​All the lectures was in Spring 2024 being recorded and uploaded on Canvas 1-2 week after the lecture actually happened. This was to encourage people to show up, and just not watching the recording! This didn't work, and it was still few people in the classroom. So expect the opportunity to be able to ask a lot of your questions if you are one of the few that shows up.

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We had lectures from the start and weekly until about a month before the exam. The Problem sets also had multiple themes in them (ex. capital allocation and valuing equity), so often the problem sets was released before we had been throught the material in class, but the deadline was usually 2 weeks after the last theme had been gone through in class. 

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Started with Fundamental Concepts of investements, then we started with Capital Allocation (MPT, Markowitz, Single index model), next we had about Market Effiency (spoiler: they are not efficient), then Bond Portfolios (rates, duration, convexity, bond pricing, Yield to maturity, CDS), then CAPM, so Arbitrage and Multifactor Models (Fama French), Equities (Valuation, Gordon Growth model etc.), and lastly Derivatives. We also had a "Wrap up" lecture with summary of the course.

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