FIN 3300
Managerial Finance
Fall 2001

Professor:

Timothy R. Mayes, Ph.D.

Office:

WC 247 E

e-mail

mayest@mscd.edu

Phone:

556-3776

WWW Home page

http://clem.mscd.edu/~mayest/

Office
Hours:

MW 10:00 – 11:30, T 4:30 – 5:30
Th 12:00 – 1:00

Prerequisites:

ACC 2010, ECO 2010, ECO 2020 and junior standing.  Prerequisites will be enforced, so you must also have all of your MTH courses.  In addition it is suggested that you have completed at least one course in statistics.

Textbook:

Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, 5^th ed. by Ross, Westerfield, Jordan.

A subscription to the Wall Street Journal will be helpful since many of the topics discussed in class are illustrated daily in Journal articles.

Calculator

A financial calculator which can handle uneven cash flow streams is required.  Most students will be best served by the Hewlett Packard 10B.  As a second choice, students may opt for the Texas Instruments BA II Plus or the TI 83.

Tutoring:

Many students find that FIN 3300 is an especially difficult course.  While I try to make myself available, you may find that you need extra help.  In this case, tutors may be available from the college (for free!). I strongly encourage you to stop by my office for help before trying to find a tutor.  For most students this is sufficient.

Purpose:

FIN 3300 is designed to acquaint students with the types of decisions made by financial managers.  The topics covered will include: financial statement analysis, time value of money, capital budgeting, cost of capital, securities valuation, etc.  Special emphasis is placed on developing decision making abilities and the use of quantitative methods to aid in these decisions.  You will be expected to apply these techniques on exams.

The topics covered in this course are important regardless of your major.  You should consider it to be your job as a student to learn these skills.  The job of your professor is not to teach you these skills.  Instead, my job is to help you to learn them.  I cannot force you to study or to learn anything, nor can I force you to ask for help.

Format:

An interactive lecture format is used, and success in this course will depend on your studying the material before each class meeting.  Class attendance is mandatory as some material not covered in the text will be presented.  Homework is not collected, but students not attempting the end-of-chapter problems have historically done very poorly on exams.  Answers to selected homework problems are in Appendix C of the text.

I will devote a portion of many class periods to working problems.  Students are encouraged to ask questions at any opportunity.

Exams:

Each of the three exams will consist of several (usually 20 to 30) multiple-choice questions and a problem section where you must show your work.  Each exam will be curved such that the average score is 70% for the class.

In addition to exams, there will be at least five multiple-choice pop quizzes each of which will consist of five questions.  Each quiz will be taken twice.  The first time will be an individual effort and the second will be a group effort.  I will assign students into groups.  The quizzes will account for 20% of your overall grade.

Students are expected to complete exams and projects at the scheduled times.  Make-up exams will not be given except in extreme situations and with prior notification.  There will be no make-up quizzes, regardless of circumstances.

Grades[1]^{, [2]}:

19 September

Exam 1: Ch. 1, 2, 3, 4

25%

31 October

Exam 2: Ch. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

25%

12 December

Exam 3 (final): Ch. 10, 11, 13, 14 and cumulative

30%

Random

Individual Quizzes (5 or more)

14%

Random

Group Quizzes (5 or more)

6%

Total

100%