Courses - Fall 2026
600 and 700 level courses with the BUFN prefix are offered only for students in the Master of Finance and Master of Quantitative Financ programs.
BUFN400
Introduction to Financial Markets and Financial Datasets
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Prerequisite: STAT400, STAT401, STAT410, or STAT420.
Recommended: CMSC320, CMSC351, MATH240, and MATH241; and should have extensive familiarity with Python including Pandas, Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib; and familiarity with probability and statistics, econometric modeling.
Restriction: Must be in the Computational Finance (#BU04) minor.
Provides an overview of financial concepts and markets and datasets. Company financial statements will be used to review concepts including earnings, cash flow, accruals, investment, dividends, etc. The course will introduce concepts related to portfolio theory and asset pricing. It will introduce the fundamentals of the stock market and market microstructure, including bid ask spreads and market liquidity. Advanced topics include event studies, high frequency trading, Over The Counter (OTC) bond markets, and more specialized institutional arrangements including repo markets and foreign currency exchange markets.
BUFN402
Portfolio Management
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN400.
Restriction: Must be in the Computational Finance (#BU04) minor.
The fundamentals of portfolio management, including asset allocation, investing strategies, and risk management. The class describes some of the main strategies used by hedge funds and provides methodologies to analyze them. The strategies are illustrated using real financial data, and students learn to apply tools for performance measurement, portfolio optimization (quadratic programming), factor models, predictive regression analysis, backtesting, and managing transaction costs.
For Computational Finance Minors only.
BUFN610
Financial Management
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Restriction: Permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business; or must be in Business and Management (Master's) program.
Credit only granted for: BUSI640, BUFN610, or BMGT610.
The fundamental concepts and techniques used to evaluate corporate decisions. Topics include the time value of money, valuation of common securities, investment decisions, capital budgeting, capital structure, and the weighted average cost of capital. The objectives are to develop the ability to make investment decisions, manage project finances, and analyze financial decisions.
BUFN620
Capital Markets
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Restriction: Must be in one of the following programs (Business and Management (Master's); Business and Management (Master's)) ; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Credit only granted for: BUFN740 or BUFN620.
Formerly: BUFN740.
Covers modern theories and techniques for analyzing investments in different securities. Introduces mathematical and statistical models to price securities and guide investment decisions. The main topics covered are portfolio theory, pricing models, market efficiency, fixed income investment, and options.
For Master of Finance students only.
BUFN630
Valuation in Corporate Finance
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN610.
Restriction: Must be in one of the following programs (Business and Management (Master's); Business and Management (Master's)) ; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Credit only granted for: BUFN630, BUFN714, BUFN750, BUFN753, or BMGT730.
Formerly: BUFN750.
An advanced corporate finance course focusing on valuation. The main objective is to apply the concepts covered in the introductory finance class through real-life applications (cases) and use valuation estimates to guide and communicate investment decisions. The topics include building Pro Forma statements and forecasting future cash flows, dynamic cash flow models, estimating the cost of capital, implementing the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) and Adjusted Present Value (APV) methods, and using real options techniques (binomial and Black and Scholes models as well as Monte Carlo simulations) to value companies and projects.
BUFN640
Financial Data Analytics
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Restriction: Must be in Business and Management (Master's) program; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Credit only granted for: BUFN758N of BUFN640.
Formerly: BUFN758N.
Introduces the skills and computing languages for analyzing financial data and testing financial models. Covers topics such as the ordinary least square regression (OLS) estimator, its properties and applications, statistical inference, and univariate and multivariate analysis. The focus is on working with data and applying econometric models to financial applications such as estimating asset pricing models, portfolio choice, and the efficient frontier. The course will use Python programming language, Google Colab environment, and matching learning packages.
BUFN650
Machine Learning in Finance
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN640.
Restriction: Must be in Business and Management (Master's) program; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Credit only granted for: BUFN758O or BUFN650.
Formerly: BUFN758O.
A hands-on course on applications of cutting-edge machine learning methods to financial modeling. It builds on the Financial Analytics class to introduce students to a wide variety of machine learning techniques ranging from lasso regression to deep learning and TensorFlow. The course provides the basic ideas and intuition behind these methods, a more formal understanding of how and why they work, and opportunities to experiment with machine-learning algorithms and apply them to big data modeling in finance. It will use the Python programming language, Google Colab environment, and machine learning packages.
BUFN721
International Investment
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN610.
Restriction: Must be in Business and Management (Master's) program; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Credit only granted for: BUFN721 or BUFN770.
Formerly: BUFN770.
Addresses international stock markets, portfolio theory, international interest rates, exchange rates and exchange rate derivatives (options, forwards, and futures), exchange rate swaps and exchange rate exposure (operating, translation, and transaction), foreign investment strategy.
BUFN726
Institutional Asset Management
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN610.
Restriction: Must be in Business and Management (Master's) program; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Credit only granted for: BUFN660, BUFN726, BUFN761 or BUFN773.
Formerly: BUFN773.
Examines how money is managed by organizations such as university endowments, pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds. Involves a mixture of finance and economics and emphasizes the incentives professional money managers face within the context of the organizational structure in which they operate. Particular attention is paid to compensation structures and monitoring mechanisms.
BUFN732
Fixed Income Analysis
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN610.
Restriction: Permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business; or must be in Business and Management (Master's) program.
Credit only granted for: BUFN732 or BUFN762.
Formerly: BUFN762.
Describes important financial instruments which have market values that are sensitive to interest rate movements. Develops tools to analyze interest rate sensitivity and value fixed income securities. Defines and explains the vocabulary of the bond management business.
BUFN734
Portfolio Management
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN610.
Restriction: Permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business; or must be in Business and Management (Master's) program.
Credit only granted for: BUFN734 or BUFN763.
Formerly: BUFN763.
Provides training that is important in understanding the investment process - the buy side of the financial world. Specifically, the objective is to provide graduate-level instruction in the following topics, both in theory and in using financial markets data to test the basic theory and practice of portfolio choice and equilibrium pricing models and their implications for efficient portfolios.
BUFN736
Quantitative Investment Strategies
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN610.
Restriction: Must be in a major in BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business; or must be in Business and Management (Master's) program.
Credit only granted for: BUFN764 or BUFN736.
Formerly: BUFN764.
Provides an introduction to quantitative techniques of selecting equities, as used commonly among long-short equity hedge funds and other quantitative equity asset management companies. Statistical factor models are developed to locate stocks with higher expected returns, based on the observable characteristics of the stocks. Implementation issues, including statistical estimation, backtesting and portfolio construction, are covered, as is performance evaluation.
BUFN741
Advanced Capital Markets
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN620; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Restriction: Must be in Business and Management (Master's) program; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Credit only granted for: BUFN758P or BUFN741.
Formerly: BUFN758P.
This course covers modern theories and techniques for investments and asset pricing. The main topics covered are: portfolio theory, pricing models, market efficiency, fixed income investment, forwards and futures, and options.
For Master of Quantitative Finance students only.
BUFN742
Financial Engineering
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUFN610.
Restriction: Permission of BMGT-Robert H.
Credit only granted for: BUFN742 or BUFN766.
Formerly: BUFN766.
Introduces and applies various computational techniques useful in the management of equity and fixed income portfolios and the valuation of financial derivatives and fixed income securities. Techniques include Monte Carlo Simulation and binomial/lattice pricing models. Emphasis is on bridging theory with the design of algorithms and models that can be directly applied in practice.
Cross-listed with BDBA848A. Credit granted only for BUFN742 or BDBA848A.
BUFN747
Asset-Liability and Nonfinancial Risk Management
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
Prerequisite: BUSI640; and BUFN740.
Restriction: Must be in Business and Management (Master's) program; or permission of BMGT-Robert H. Smith School of Business.
This course surveys risks and techniques associated with asset-liability and nonfinancial risks including market and interest rate risk, liquidity risk, operational risk and model risk, among others. Techniques such as portfolio value-at-risk (VaR) are used in realistic empirical examples to illustrate the methods. Key rate duration, principal components analysis and analytical and simulation-based VaR techniques are used to estimate interest rate risk exposure for financial firms. Hedging these risks using various financial derivative products such as options, swaps and futures contracts is explored. Operational risk is estimated leveraging Poisson loss distributions and model risk and validation techniques are reviewed.
BUFN758D
Special Topics in Finance; Big Data in Finance
Credits:
2
Grad Meth:
Reg
BUFN759
Independent Study in Finance
Credits:
1 - 6
Grad Meth:
Reg
By Department Permission Only.
Flagship Institution of the University System of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
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301.405.1000
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