Perspective finance:
Finance is a discipline that studies the economic activities of money and monetary funds. In modern economic life, credit and currency circulation are inseparable. It is the basic content of finance to closely link credit and currency circulation, and to study their respective laws of movement, their position and role in economic life, and their mutual restriction with other economic categories.
Finance majors have high requirements for mathematics. With the integration of global financial markets becoming an important trend in the development of international financial markets, foreign language requirements have also been put on the agenda. Generally speaking, if you want to learn this major, you should not only have confidence in your own mathematics foundation, but also have confidence in foreign languages and computers. The courses of finance major mainly include investment, central banking, commercial banking, insurance, financial market, investment project evaluation, securities investment analysis, investment banking theory and practice, etc. , and related basic courses include macro and micro economics, accounting, statistics, money and banking, econometrics, international finance and so on. In addition, each school adds or subtracts some courses according to its actual situation. For example, permanent courses include financial derivatives, financial time series model, international settlement, etc.
At present, China's financial industry is developing rapidly, and banks, insurance companies and securities companies all need a large number of professionals. Although the financial situation was in full swing when I rushed into the workplace, the competition was fierce. Many students majoring in finance have lost the opportunity to enter banking, securities and other industries because of their slightly insufficient competitiveness. For students majoring in finance, it is undoubtedly the best employment direction to enter the bank to manage deposit, loan and investment business, and to enter the securities field or insurance industry to engage in financial-related occupations. Therefore, to choose this industry, we must be prepared for fierce competition.
main course
Western economics, international finance, monetary banking, financial market, introduction to world economy, financial engineering, international insurance, trust and leasing, corporate finance, securities investment, operation and management of commercial banks, financial statistical analysis, international settlement, international economic law, international trade theory and practice, and financial English. At the same time, it also offers many basic courses such as English intensive reading, English reading, oral English, English listening, calculus, linear algebra, probability theory and mathematical statistics, computer application and so on.
Employment direction
Judging from the employment situation in recent years, finance graduates usually have these flows:
(1) Economic forecast analysis and management consultant
Economic forecasting analysts are widely distributed in various industries, but generally only multinational companies, large and medium-sized enterprises, government economic decision-making departments, and public research institutions in various industries will set up. Mainly responsible for the collection and analysis of various market data. The importance of this position is becoming more and more obvious. Management consultants mainly flow to some consulting companies, such as IT consulting, strategic consulting, marketing consulting, auditing and listing counseling.
(2) Foreign trade personnel
Selling products produced by "World Factory" to foreign customers; Looking for foreign sources for domestic customers; Organize international trade goods logistics, etc. A considerable number of foreign trade personnel have set up their own foreign trade companies after their experience is mature.
(3) Management positions
Graduate students are different from undergraduates. Most of them have participated in some social practice and have some work experience during their master's studies, so when they formally enter the society, they can also get some management positions, such as production management, administrative management, personnel management and financial management.
(4) Fund managers
Among them, with the emergence of more fund projects and fund management companies, society will need a large number of fund managers, and fund managers are high-level talents in this industry. Their duties can be roughly divided into: responsible for raising a certain fund; Responsible for the operation and management of the fund; Responsible for the listing of funds and monitoring after listing. At present, there is a shortage of talents in this field and the career prospects are promising. The fund industry has the greatest demand for professional managers. It is not easy to be a qualified fund manager. Generally, you need a master's degree or above, have a professional knowledge background in risk control, have strong analytical judgment ability in multiple disciplines and industries, have a keen sense of market smell and rich practical experience.
(5) Securities brokers
The quality requirements of securities brokers mainly focus on two aspects: first, solid knowledge of financial funds; Second, based on the investment experience of long-term observation of the market; Because securities investment is a high-risk and high-return investment, as a securities broker, we must study the price change trend of the regime market, grasp the regularity, and combine the analysis of various factors affecting securities prices to gradually accumulate considerable investment experience and skilled business operation ability.
In recent years, the number of investors in China has surged. This huge investment group provides a huge market for the rise of securities brokers. At present, China's securities brokers are divided into securities salesmen, commission brokers, intermediary brokers and exchange intermediary brokers.
(6) Stock analysts
Stock analysts mainly provide stock market investment consulting services for stock market investors and hold relevant lectures, reports and analysis meetings. Some stock analysts publish stock review articles in newspapers and provide stock market investment services through public media such as radio and TV stations. To engage in stock analysis in China, you must have a bachelor's degree or above, and have more than two years' experience in securities industry. You need to take two courses: Basic Theory of Securities Investment and Securities Investment Analysis. Those who pass the examination and meet the requirements need to apply to the local securities management department or directly to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the qualification certificate can only be obtained after examination and approval. Those who have obtained the qualification certificate apply to the securities management department through the securities investment consulting institution to which they belong, so as to obtain the practicing qualification, and finally the practicing certificate is issued by the China Securities Association.
Compared with finance major, financial engineering is a young major. In April, 2002, the Ministry of Education approved China Renmin University, Central University of Finance and Economics, Wuhan University, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and Xiamen University to recruit undergraduates majoring in financial engineering from the autumn of 2002. Since then, financial engineering has entered our field of vision as an independent discipline.
Financial engineering is a upstart in finance and a frontier interdisciplinary subject. Since the formal implementation of 1973 floating exchange rate system, the wave of financial innovation based on free competition and financial liberalization has swept the whole western world, and financial engineering, as a new discipline, came into being in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its main content is to study the pricing rules, functions and application strategies of financial derivatives. It introduces the idea of engineering design into the financial field, and designs, develops and implements new financial products by using engineering methods (mathematical modeling, numerical calculation, network diagram, simulation, etc.). ) and creatively solve financial problems. Financial engineering combines modern finance, information technology and engineering methods, mathematics, statistics and engineering methods, which makes it widely used in finance and effectively promotes the development of finance.
Because the theoretical research of financial engineering in China started late, there is a certain gap between China and western developed countries, and the gap in practical application is more obvious, so the cultivation of talents is particularly urgent. The main courses of financial engineering mainly include: financial economics, corporate finance, investment, financial engineering, derivative financial instruments, fixed-income bonds, econometrics, operational research, mathematical analysis, probability theory, linear algebra, numerical calculation and algorithm language, statistics, commercial banks, international finance, intermediate macro-microeconomics and so on. The purpose of this major is to cultivate financial engineering talents with modern financial theory, modern mathematical tools and computer information technology, who can use financial engineering methods and technologies to develop and design new financial tools and means and creatively solve practical financial problems.
The employment direction of financial engineering major is similar to that of financial major. It is the first choice for this major to enter multinational companies, financial institutions and universities to engage in finance, financial management, teaching and scientific research. However, because it is a branch of finance, its research direction is more detailed and professional than finance, so it has a very good development space.
There are many definitions of financial engineering, and jon John Finnerty, an American financial economist, puts forward the best definition: financial engineering includes the design, development and implementation of innovative financial instruments and financial means, as well as creative solutions to financial problems.
Financial engineering has two concepts: narrow sense and broad sense. Narrow financial engineering mainly refers to the use of advanced mathematics and communication tools, on the basis of existing basic financial products, to carry out different forms of combination decomposition, in order to design new financial products that meet customer needs and have specific profit and loss characteristics. Financial engineering in a broad sense refers to all technological developments that use engineering means to solve financial problems. It includes not only financial product design, but also financial product pricing, trading strategy design, financial risk management and other aspects. This paper adopts the broad concept of financial engineering.
The core content of financial engineering
In financial engineering, its core lies in developing and designing new financial products or businesses, and its essence lies in improving efficiency, including:
1. Create new financial instruments, such as creating the first zero coupon bond and the first swap contract;
2. Development and application of existing tools, such as applying futures trading to new fields and developing a large number of options and swaps;
3. Combine the existing financial tools and means with combinatorial decomposition technology to compound new financial products, such as forward swaps and futures options, and build a new financial structure.
About financial engineers
A financial engineer refers to a person who has passed professional training and examination and obtained a certificate issued by an authoritative trade association or a corresponding financial institution. Different from traditional financial theory researchers and financial market analysts, financial engineers pay more attention to the operability of financial market transactions and financial instruments, apply the latest scientific and technological means and large-scale processing methods (engineering methods) to financial markets, and create new financial products and trading methods, so as to win profits, avoid risks or improve services for participants in financial markets.
Financial engineers are usually employed by investment banks, commercial banks, securities companies, various other financial intermediaries and non-financial companies. Because financial engineers have mastered a series of professional qualities that cannot be achieved by technology alone, and because the speed of financial innovation exceeds the ability of the market to produce competent financial engineers, financial engineers are in short supply and have bright employment prospects. On Wall Street, an excellent financial engineer can get an annual salary of $500,000.
We know that the eternal theme of finance is liquidity, profit and risk aversion, and all economic entities involved in financial activities pursue these three goals. These three goals are often contradictory, especially profit and risk avoidance, but they are absolutely mutually exclusive, unlike fish and bear's paw. Through appropriate combination management technology, we can give consideration to both to a certain extent. The pursuit of these three goals is an endless process, so is the improvement of management technology and art. It is an important milestone to enter the engineering stage, that is, financial engineering.
Regarding the practical application of financial engineering, there are different scopes according to two calibers. Financial business in a narrow sense is only financial derivatives and their combinations. In addition, the broad caliber also includes the modern form of traditional investment banking business after creative thinking engineering treatment. We will discuss the modern investment banking business which belongs to financial engineering in the next section. Here, we will first introduce a derivative as the core part. It should be pointed out that in this kind of financial engineering, risk management is the most prominent, and the benefits are contained in risk management. And "for risk management, financial engineering has two choices: the first choice is to replace risk with certainty; The second option is to only replace the risks that are unfavorable to you and leave the risks that are beneficial to you. "