FIN 3244 - Report

Financial Instrument Report Assignment

FIN 3244 - Money and Capital Markets
Team Paper & Presentation Guidelines

This is a team project requiring a written paper which explains some aspect of money and capital markets. Your team will also present the subject to your classmates and profesor for a presentation grade. This project will focus on a chosen domestic or international financial market instrument or some current event topic in the financial markets.

Report - Topic Assignments and Due Dates

Here is a step-by-step instruction sheet: not following these clearly-defined steps will result in grade reductions.

1) Buy a small (no larger than 1") three-ring binder. Print out these files - Paper Grading Process and Proof Reading Marks- and place them into your binder. Read the files carefully and prepare your Stage I Assignment within two weeks of the Topic Assignment. We will assign topics in class.
2) Know your Topic Assignment and Due Date - both are listed at the link above.
3) Hand in Stage I work (defined in the Paper Grading Process file) within two weeks of the Topic Assignment.
4) When I hand back Stage I start Stage II immediately.
5) Stage II is due the day of your presentation. If you have any doubts about the quality of your Stage II paper please go the the FGCU Writing Center for feedback before you hand it in their web address with all information on use is at http://www.fgcu.edu/cas/english/writingcenter/ . All Stage II papers will be run through http://www.turnitin.com a site that checks your work against all work on the web and in their data base for plagiarism. Label the paper "Stage II" as a subtitle.
6) Once I return my Stage II feedback you have one week to get the paper back to me for the recording of the final paper grade - Stage III. Label the paper Stage III as a subtitle. Here are the instructions on how to use Turnitin.com.

Students agree that by taking this course all required papers are subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the Terms and Conditions of Use posted on the Turnitin.com site.

Presentation
Presentation Evaluation
Peer Evaluation
Peer Evaluations: Teams inevitably introduce a potential problem referred to as the "free rider." You will grade your peers and that will be used to adjust individual grades within the team using the form found at this link. The Peer Evaluations are due the day of the report and should be handed in to me personally.

NOTE - Incentives Matter: Again - the Peer Evaluations are due the day of the report and should be handed in to me personally. Examination questions should be at the end of your written report on a separate page. If these are not ready the day of the presentation a 5% penalty against the entire project grade is levied and 5% more will be deducted per subsequent class meeting.

Presentation Instructions:

Start and end on time. Allow 25 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for discussion questions.
Be sure that you use spell check on both your paper and presentation
Follow good Power Point practices (e.g., not too much on one slide, readable from the back of the room, etc.)
Email handouts and power point presentations to CRNXXXXX@eagle.fgcu.edu

Topic Level I - Financial Instrument Papers
Please use the framework below to structure both your presentation and your paper.

I strongly suggest that you use this in your bibliography.
Instruments of the Money Market, Cook, Timothy Q. and Laroche, Robert K. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Topic Level II - Institutions or Other Paper
Please talk to Dr. Hobbs about your paper and presentation.

Each team will be required to produce write one short paper (5-10 pages) which fully explores some money or capital market instrument or topic. Topic Level I reports will use the Financial Instrument Paper Outline outline below. Topic Level II reports are more general and will not follow the specific outline below.

All papers must be typed, double-spaced with the pages numbered. Your goal is to produce a written report that will inform a generally sophisticated reader of the workings of the market you choose. Use the outline below to organize the report. Your ability to follow these instructions will be considered in grading. There may be an aspect or two in the outline that are not relevant: if so, state so. "I can't find that" should be used judicially. The goal is to produce a report that will inform a generally sophisticated reader of the workings of the market you choose. In all writing clarity is important. Correct grammar, syntax, and spelling are assumed.

Topic Level I
Financial Instrument Paper Outline

Section 1: General Information
Introduction
Clearly define the financial instrument
Address maturity(s) of issue and liquidity
Advantages of the Instrument
Disadvantages of the Instrument
Issue and Primary Markets
Procedure for issuance
Costs associated with issuance
What institutions handle the issue?
Major buyers - how does the instrument meet their needs?
Major sellers?
Secondary Markets
Procedure for sale in secondary markets
Costs associated with sale in the secondary market
Brokers? Dealers? What institutions handle sales in the secondary market?
Major buyers
Major sellers
Substitute Instruments
Identify the financial instruments that act as substitutes

Section 2: Market Information and Risk Assessment
Market Information for Consumers
How do consumers get information on the instrument?
Are there rating agencies? If so, what do they focus on?
Identify any agencies that rate the instrument and explain the rating rubric.
Identify web sources and paper sources. Choose the best two or three to highlight.

Conduct a thorough risk assessment addressing the following types of risk:
1. Market Risk
2. Reinvestment Risk
3. Default Risk - document with data if possible.
4. Inflation Risk
5. Currency Risk
6. Political Risk

Section 3: Data Series
Required Excel Tables. Each table should be included in body of the report. All tables should be clear and concise. These time series tables should cover a 10 year minimum and you should report a correlation coefficient and provide a brief interpretation of it for the two series in Table 2 and Table 3 in the text of your report. (Correlation Coefficients were covered in MAN 3504 - Operations Management. They are easily calculated in Excel.)
Table 1: Time series of Market Price for the instrument you have chosen
Table 2: Time series of Market Price for the instrument you have chosen compared to one of the Market Price of one of the substitute instruments you identified in Section 1 of the report
Table 3: Time series of Market Price for the instrument you have chosen compared to either the Federal Funds Rate or 90 day T-bills- 10 years minimum

Briefly address what the effects on a portfolio would be if you added the substitute instrument to a portfolio comprised entirely of your main instrument of study.

Section 4: Regulation and Current Developments
Regulatory Framework for the Instrument
Which agencies have regulatory authority over issue and sale?
What reporting requirements are required by these regulatory authorities?
New Developments in the Instrument
Report any news currently surrounding these instruments. (The Economist and The Wall Street Journal should be checked over the past year for any stories they may have carried.)
Does this instrument represent a financial innovation? If so, when was it introduced and in response to what factors.

Section 5: Examination Questions
Write two examination questions from your material. They can be either short essay or multiple choice. Add them at the end of your report.

Bibliography
A bibliography is required. Expand your research beyond the textbook -- I would expect to see eight or more sources of information for this report. Your textbook can be used for you to get a handle on the instrument but is should not be a primary source for the report.

Finally - There may be an aspect or two in the outline that are not relevant: if so; so state.

Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is a rampant problem on college and university campuses today. As a social scientist, I think it says something quite interesting about the relativism of our current culture -- or perhaps Glaucon, Adeimantus and Thrasymachus were right (see The Republic of Plato, Part II "Justice in the State and in the Individual", Chapter V, "The Problem Stated".)

I take plagiarism very seriously. The university also takes a serious stance on the practice which can involve expulsion from the university. I have had problems with this at FGCU and do not plan to have any more. Believe me when I say: "I read your work carefully and I use web sites to check when flags are raised."

I will be on you "like white on rice" if I see any verifiable plagiarism. I will doggedly pursue all avenues to have you punished to the fullest extent. I didn't get a Ph.D. without a relatively high capability to remember what I have read before (and I read ALOT.)

So that plagiarism does not become a problem for you, read the two following web sites:

A Statement on Plagiarism
Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It

If a presentation is required they will be graded using the following format: http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/bhobbs/PresentationEvaluation.html

Last Updated: May 18, 2010
e-mail - Dr. Bradley K. Hobbs