Project in International Finance

needassignmenthelp

feras.pdf

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Project in International Finance

1 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

UWBS038g Assessment Briefing for Students

Assessment brief number (and title where applicable): Module leader: Seng Kiong, Kok email address: [email protected]

Academic Year: 2013 / 14

PGB1

Module assessment detail (approved at validation as amended by module modification)

Module code & title 7FC002 International Finance Module Learning outcomes: Tick (√)

if tested here

LO1 Critical evaluation of International Financial Markets LO2 Critical evaluation and application of International Financial Instruments ü LO3 Critical evaluation and application of International Financial strategies ü LO4 Assessment types Weightings

(%)

Group Report and Oral Presentation 30 Individual Report 70 ü Assessment type, weighting and LOs tested by this assessment indicated in the shaded area above by a √

Important requirements Mode of Working: Individual Presentation Format: Report Method of Submission: Paper Submission to MX student Office Mark required to pass this coursework: 50%/ (Complete following detail) Hand in date & time Monday 13th January 2014 @ 16:00 Date & method by which you will receive feedback

Via WOLF and E-Vision

Resit/retrieval date PG Block 3 Assessment limits (in accordance with UWBS assessment tariff)

No more than: 3000 words, excluding appendices

Do clearly state your student number when submitting work but do not indicate your name. Always keep a copy of your work. Always keep a file of working papers (containing, for instance, working notes, copied journal article and early drafts of your work, etc.) that show the development of your work and the sources you have used. You may need to show this to tutor at some point so notes should be clear and written in English. This is an important requirement. There may be circumstances where it is difficult to arrive at a mark for your work. If this is so you may be asked to submit your file within 3 working days and possibly meet with your tutor to answer questions on your submission.

2 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

Explanation of submission requirements and further guidance

• Assessments are subject to a word limit to ensure consistency of approach across all modules. Your work should not exceed the limit indicated (excluding references and appendices). Do not feel that you have to “achieve” this word count in your work. What is important is that the work satisfies the stated learning outcomes which are articulated through the assessment criteria (see following page).

• Care is taken to ensure that work has been marked correctly. Checks are conducted by both a second lecturer and an independent expert from outside the University on batches of work.

• Your work will not be returned to you but you will receive detailed feedback explaining how your mark has been arrived at and how your work could have been improved upon.

• Always use the Harvard style referencing system. The University’s Learning Information Services have produced a series of guides covering a range of topics to support your studies and develop your academic skills including a guide to Harvard referencing http://www.wlv.ac.uk/lib/skills_for_learning/study_guides.aspx

• Expensive or elaborate bindings and covers for submissions are not required in most instances. (Refer to guidelines however in the case of dissertations).

• The Business School has a policy of anonymous marking of individual assessments which applies to most modules. You should not identify yourself directly in the work you submit and you may need to use phrases such as “the author of this assignment ….”in the detail of your submission.

Avoid academic misconduct

Warning: Collusion, plagiarism and cheating are very serious offences that can result in a student being expelled from the University. The Business School has a policy of actively identifying students who engage in academic misconduct of this nature and routinely applying detection techniques including the use of sophisticated software packages.

• Avoid Collusion. The Business School encourages group working, however to avoid collusion always work on your own when completing individual assessments. Do not let fellow students have access to your work at any stage and do not be tempted to access the work of others. Refer to your module tutor if you do not understand or you need further guidance.

• Avoid Plagiarism. You must use available and relevant literature to demonstrate your knowledge of a subject, however to avoid plagiarism you must take great care to acknowledge it properly. Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone else's work and passing it off as your own. This includes incorporating either unattributed direct quotation(s) or substantial paraphrasing from the work of another/others. For this reason it is important that you cite all the sources whose work you have drawn on and reference them fully in accordance with the Harvard referencing standard. (This includes citing any work that you may have submitted yourself previously). Extensive direct quotations in assessed work is ill advised because it represents a poor writing style, and it could lead to omission errors and a plagiarism offence could be committed accidentally.

• Avoid the temptation to “commission” work or to cheat in other ways. There are temptations on the internet for you to take “short cuts”. Do not be tempted to either commission work to be completed on your behalf or search for completed past academic work.

When you submit your work you will be required to sign an important declaration that the submission is your own work, any material you have used has been acknowledged and referenced, you have not allowed another student to have access to your work, the work has not been submitted previously, etc.

3 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

Assessment Brief/ Task The detailed requirements for this task are as follows:

You will be given a notional $250,000 which is to be used to trade on the FOREX futures market. The objective of the assignment is so that you gain an understanding of what factors make the currency markets move and also what is a significant movement in terms of profit and loss. You are restricted to the following markets and you should select just ONE currency to trade:-‐ Futures traded on the IMM:

• Euro/US$ • British Pound/US$ • Japanese Yen/US$

You are also restricted to TEN trades in total (5 open and 5 closing). This is a maximum, not a minimum. When you change “direction” or increase the size of a position you must close the existing trades first. This is to enable it to be easier to verify the accuracy of your trades.

You should only trade the December 2013 contracts. You may begin trading at any time. All trading must finish on or before Monday 16th December 2013 and you must trade for a minimum period of 10 working days (defined as “marking to market” on 10 occasions, i.e. having 10 settlement prices). Your written work must then be submitted (to the school office in MX Building) by Monday 13th January 2013. Please refer to ‘What should be included in the report?’ for more information on how to structure your work.

You are advised to spend some time researching the assignment and perhaps "paper trade" for a short time before embarking on your actual trades. If you haven't begun trading by Friday the 30th of November then you will be deemed to have failed the assignment as you will then have insufficient time to undertake 10 days of trading.

You can however begin trading at any time as long as you complete trading by Monday 16th December 2013 and trade for a period of ten working days. Note that the last day of trading for the December 2013 contracts is Monday 23rd December. After this date there is no trading and therefore no prices available. Hence it is vitally important that you commence trading as soon as possible.

The details of each trade must be entered on-‐line at:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CN_NDyG0wZDPYJtmeNJ_GmWTWW8agEwOg_Q01Y0wmOY/viewform Note: This link will also be available on your WOLF topic for 7FC002 International Finance You will be required to provide the following information when completing the trade form:

1) Student Number 2) Type of Trade (Opening or Closing) 3) Direction of Trade (Long or Short) 4) Currency Pairing 5) Number of Contracts 6) Current Price

4 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

Live futures prices are also available on-‐line at the CME (www.cmegroup.com). You should trade on the GLOBEX prices. GLOBEX is an electronic platform and so the price is constantly changing although the most active trading period is during office hours Chicago time (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=64) which is 6 hours behind GMT. At around about 11pm (GMT) the prices will disappear for around 15 minutes whilst a settlement (Sett) price is recorded. This is the price used to undertake the “marking to market” each day.

The table below shows how the prices are quoted on the CME website. You trade at the last but your marking to market takes place at the Sett.

The Sett. here refers to the Settlement Price recorded on the last trading day (here that was 4th January 2011).

You should also construct a spreadsheet to keep track of the dollar value of your portfolio daily throughout the trading period. A printed copy of this spreadsheet should be incorporated with your written work. You should end up with a time series of dollar values of the portfolio over the trading period. You must also show the following:-

• The percentage rate of return over the trading period. • The average daily percentage change in the value of your portfolio • The standard deviation of the daily percentage changes. • Information (Sharpe) ratio

Other rules include:-

• Round turn commission on futures is $25 per contract. • Margin requirements on futures contracts are as follows (initial/maintenance):-

Yen ($3465/$3150) Pound ($1650/$1500) Euro ($2475/$2250) source: cmegroup.com, 10/07/2013

5 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

• If you find that you have insufficient dollars to meet margin payments then you must close a futures position.

• No borrowing is allowed. • To minimise computation cash may not be invested overnight in the money markets or invested in

any other securities that earn a rate of return. • Before you submit your work you MUST close out all of your futures positions. You will be penalised

for fabricating trades to minimise losses and/or amplify profits. • The face value of the $/Yen future is Yen 12,500,000. • The face value of the $/£ future is £62,500. • The face value of the $/EURO future is EURO 125,000

What should be included in the report?

Students should essentially include the reasoning behind each of the trades and as this coursework is a little different from others you may be confused as to how to structure it. The advice is to structure it like an events study, linking trade reasoning and evaluation to the information that was considered prior to trading. These strategies could take the form of new reports or fundamental and technical analysis of the respective currency parings.

Students will also be required to benchmark and critically evaluate the performance of their portfolio. This should appear in the report under the heading of ‘Evaluation of Portfolio Performance’.

Enter into the spirit of the coursework. The list of trades that your calculations are based on should tally with the trades you entered. If you realised after the event that you made a mistake then own up to it, accept a mark deduction and list it as an error. Note that all your trades will be recorded online so please refrain from fabricating/changing trades. Please be honest! Students will have to include the following tables:

Record of Trades

Date & Time Trade Currency Contracts Maturity Price

Errors:

1. 2. 3.

6 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

At some point in the work you are going to have to reveal your overall result which I would like presented as follows:

Date Total % return

Total Gross Profit in dollars after trading:

Total Net Profit in dollars after trading:

Percentage return (2 decimal places):

Standard deviation of returns (2 decimal places):

Information Ratio (2 decimal places):

The “Total” figure here refers to the total value of your portfolio when the positions are valued at the end of each day in the marking to market process plus any cash that you have. You only have one “Total” figure for each day.

Everything should tally. The “Profit/Loss” referred to above should be verifiable by me from the list of trades you entered. The “Total Gross Profit” figure that you quote should then be the sum of all the individual profits for each trade. The “Total Net Profit” should be the “Total Gross Profit” minus total commission paid. Embed all tables into the text. Even if this means using scissors and glue! For the more technically adept use copy and paste or for charts/images from webpages you can use screen capture function.

The following information is important when: • Preparing for your assessment

• Checking your work before you submit it

• Interpreting feedback on your work after marking.

7 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

Assessment Criteria

The module learning outcomes tested by this assessment task are indicated on page 1. The precise criteria against which your work will be marked is as follows:

• Content and theory

• Secondary research

• Critical analysis

• Academic writing

• Presentation and referencing

Performance descriptors Performance descriptors indicate how marks will be arrived at against each of the above criteria. The descriptors indicate the likely characteristics of work that is marked within the percentage bands indicated.

90-100% Outstanding understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Outstanding evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Outstanding argument comprehensively supported by the evidence. Exceptional conclusion and recommendation thoroughly supported by the evidence provided. Exceptionally structured and written piece of work fully referenced using the Harvard System.

80-89% Excellent understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Excellent evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Excellent argument fully supported by the evidence. Excellent conclusion and recommendation fully supported by the evidence provided. Excellently structured and written piece of work fully referenced using the Harvard System.

70-79% Very good understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Very good evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Very good, sound argument largely supported by the evidence. Very good conclusion and recommendation largely supported by the evidence provided. Very well structured and written piece of work fully referenced using the Harvard System.

60-69% Good understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Good evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Good argument generally supported by evidence. Good conclusion and recommendation largely supported by the evidence provided. Well-structured and written piece of work fully referenced using the Harvard System.

50-59% Competent understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Competent evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Competent argument reasonably supported by evidence. Competent conclusion and recommendation variably supported by the evidence provided. Competently structured and written piece of work fully referenced using the Harvard System.

40-49% Basic understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Basic evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Basic argument with limited supporting evidence. Basic conclusion and recommendation with limited supporting evidence provided.

8 | P a g e A s s e s s m e n t B r i e f i n g f o r S t u d e n t s

Basically structured and written piece of work fully referenced using the Harvard System.

30-39% Weak/superficial understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Weak evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Weak argument insufficiently supported by evidence. Weak conclusion and recommendation with little support from the evidence provided. Weakly structured and written piece of work poorly referenced using the Harvard System.

20-29% Poor understanding, analysis and application of international finance theories and concepts. Poor evaluation and synthesis of theory and evidence. Poor argument not supported by the provision of evidence. Poor conclusion and recommendation with no support from the evidence provided. Poorly structured and written piece of work poorly referenced using the Harvard System.

10-19% Little to no attempt to engage with the assignment brief

0-9% No real attempt to address the assignment brief

To help you further: • Refer to the WOLF topic for contact details of your module leader/tutor, tutorial inputs,

recommended reading and other sources, etc. Resit details will also appear on WOLF. • The University’s Learning Information Services offer support and guidance to help you with

your studies and develop your academic skills http://www.wlv.ac.uk/lib/skills_for_learning/study_guides.aspx