Pre-requisites: 1603211
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to financial markets including their types, function and the financial instruments that are traded in such markets, using descriptive, analytical and conceptual tools that constitute the basis of the finance discipline. This course covers three main parts related to financial markets that enhance the knowledge in this field: the first part is the introductory part which focuses on the role of financial markets in the economy and analyzes the risk and the determinants of interest rates. The second part is about securities markets, which discusses the types of financial markets in details including Money Markets, Bond Markets, Stock Markets, Futures and Options markets. The final part introduces some market microstructure issues related to different type of trading systems (floor versus electronic trading system), order execution systems (i.e. order-driven versus quote driven systems) and market microstructure characteristics which include liquidity and volatility.