Finance Assignment

Master of Science in Risk

Management Program

Strategic Capstone Workshop

May 30, 2013

Agenda

•! Introduction

•! Sample topics

•! Grading

•! Process, deadlines and deliverables

•! Finding groups and topics

•! Resources and Tools

•! Stern Computing & Data Resources

Introduction

•! The Capstone requires participants to build on their own professional experience and their exposure to the academic content of the program to create a meaningful project that demonstrates their ability to take an integrated view of global finance.

•! Each group is a combination of 5-6 people from different job functions, backgrounds, fields of expertise, etc.

•! The Capstone will run the full year of the MSRM Program. It allows participants to enrich the projects as each module is completed and relevant tools and insights applies to the project.

Introduction

•! The Capstone is not intended to be a formal dissertation or narrative paper.

•! It should ideally take the form of “report to management,” emphasizing substance over length and the forest over the trees. The precise format is driven by the substance.

•! Where possible, it should be action-oriented and framed in terms of business policy and competitive strategy.

•! Given this format, it should be easily convertible into PowerPoint presentation.

Some Sample Topics

•! Brazil: Is This Time Different?

•! Does Reputation of SIFIs really matter?

•! Strategic Hedging Choices in Wholesale and Retail Banking

•! Managing Currency Risk in Small Emerging Markets: A Case Study in Costa Rica

•! Shadow Banking: Case Studies and Global Regulatory Reform

•! Does Risk Management Matter to Shareholders?

•! The Impact of Exchange Traded Products on the Parameters of Gold

Rules of the Road

•! Think through the projects carefully before you commit to a plan

•! Make sure the project is doable in terms of days requirements, access to firms and other inputs

•! Structure the project, if appropriate, in a hypothesis testing framework – Motivation – Literature review – Hypotheses – Descriptive data – Hypothesis testing – Findings – Conclusions & significance

•! If a business issue: What’s the issue – Why is it important – What do we know and what’s been tried - What’s the opportunity – What’s the plan – How to get it done?

•! The research should be replicable

•! Define all terms and concepts

•! Be sure to cite all sources

•! Do not plagiarize – everything goes through Turnitin to identify non-original content (the Internet is your friend and your enemy)

Grading

•! Weighted 6 credits

•! Grading Matrix

Item Aspect Weight

Data & Information

Collection

•! Quality

•! Quantity 20%

Methodology &

Execution

•! Soundness

•! Clarity 20%

Findings •! Rigor

•! Depth 20%

Prediction &

Implications

•! Significance

•! Innovation 20%

Others •! Presentation Skill

•! General Impression & Teamwork 20%

TOTAL 100%

Process

Individual proposal submission

Pitch to the class

Finalize topic and group and submit an outline

Faculty member assigned as project advisor

Presentation

Status Report

Draft Work Product

Final Paper

In 1 – 2 paragraphs

In 3 – 4 pages

20 min. verbal presentation + 20 min. Q&A

In 1 – 2 pages

Deadlines and Deliverables

Item Deadline Deliverable

Individual topic proposal

July 15, 2013 1-2 paragraph write up

Group formation and decision about the topic

August 3, 2013

One page proposal stating the objectives and proposed methodology and a list of team members

Faculty advisor is assigned

August 26, 2013 Conference call or meeting with the adviser

First status report October 2013 Short report stating the work done so far and the steps planned for the coming months.

Final report due May 5, 2014 Upload to NYU Classes

Final presentation May 20, 2014 20 minute presentation and panel Q&A

Finding Groups and Topics

•! All are required to submit at least one idea !! If you already have some team members identified, you can

submit a group proposal

•! Individual/group proposals will be circulated to the entire class before the start of Module 2

•! Individual proposals ‘pitched’ in a special session on Day 1 of Module 2

•! Groups & topics should be ready by the end of Module 2

Finding Groups and Topics

•! Discussion forum on NYUClasses !! STRATEGIC CAPSTONE: Class of 2014

Resources & Tools

•! Resources: !! Stern Computing

!! Library

!! Faculty

•! Tools: !! Google Site

!! Blackboard Group Pages

!! Other collaboration technologies

Computing Research Facilities at Stern

Overview for MS in Risk Management

Norman White

Faculty Director

Stern Center for Research Computing

13

Research Support at Stern

•! Major Areas of Support !! Consulting – Stern Center for Research Computing

!! Syndicated Data – WRDS, Wharton Research Data Bases

!! High Performance Computing – Stern Center for Research Computing

!! Cloud Computing

!! Textual Data – Bobst Virtual Business Library

!! Bloomberg terminals

!! Custom servers – Stern Compute Cloud

!! Software Installation – Stern Center for Research Computing

14

Consulting Support

•! Advice on facilities/services for research projects.

•! Programming / web development for small projects.

•! Help in locating a consultant for large projects.

•! Help in using grid computing facilities.

•! Help in locating data (WRDS, internal, VBL …)

15

WRDS

•! Wharton Research Data Systems houses most of Stern’s syndicated data. !! Data can be accessed from Stern by going to

http://wrds.wharton.upenn.edu

!! You can also apply for a computer account that will allow you to run custom programs to pull the data (SAS).

!! Wharton also has a staff of consultants to help you with data access, sas programming etc. (but not for students).

!! Students need to have a faculty member request a class account.

!! Students only have access during the normal school terms.

16

High Performance Computing

•! Stern has a medium size grid computing environment for researchers who have large computational needs. It consists of approximately 12 machines with a total of over 70 processors and 70 TB of disk. It is heavily used by Stern researchers doing simulations, optimizations, data analysis etc.

•! For problems that are too large for the Stern cluster, the university has a much larger cluster, although not as much software.

•! Stern is also in the process of installing a small hadoop cluster for processing large volumes of textual data.

17

Textual Data

•! The NYU library, Bobst, subscribes to a wide variety of textual data bases like Reuters, New York Times, Lexis Nexis etc.

•! It can be reached at http://library.nyu.edu/vbl

•! Note: You will need to use a proxy server to access most sources from outside the university, using your NYU (not Stern) password.

•! http://www.nyu.edu/its/nyunet/proxy/

18

Bloomberg Terminals

•! There is a Bloomberg terminal in the Salomon Center data center for faculty/phd access to Bloomberg.

•! MBA and MS Students have access to Bloomberg terminals in the 2nd floor reading room of KMEC. There is no remote access to Bloomberg from off campus.

19

Cloud Computing

•! A recent addition is the Stern Cloud Computing environment, which allows us to provide faculty with virtual, specialized servers for short term projects. (not generally available to students)

•! Servers can be linux, Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server etc.

•! Users can specify processors, ram, disk, network cards.

•! Provisioning can be done very quickly, often within a day.

•! http://apps.stern.nyu.edu provides student access to a number of PC based applications. (See example, next slide)

20

21

Big Data – Under Development

•! The SCRC has a “big data” pilot that will allow faculty to address problems for which an HPC cluster is not approriate.

•! The pilot is a small hadoop (10 nodes, 20 cores) cluster which runs most of the commonly used “big data” tools, including HBASE, MAHOUT, PEGASUS, and PIG.

•! Large projects can be moved to the Aamzon EC2 cloud if necessary.

Software Availability

•! Stern and NYU have site licenses for software like matlab, Splus, datastream, SDC Platinum

•! Faculty and students can also purchase licenses for sas, mathematica, stata, SPSS etc. at the NYU bookstore

•! Send an email to [email protected] for help.

•! Note that network site licenses need to be accessed through the Stern VPN. !! http://www.stern.nyu.edu/it/guides/vpnpc.html

23

Staff •! Norman White, Faculty Director (1-212-998-0842) –

[email protected]

!! Contact for questions on how to use grid computing, resource issues, complaints

•! Robin Wurl – Manager Salomon Data Center (1-212-998-0814)– [email protected]

!! Contact for consulting/programming help

•! Dan Graham – Manager of infrastructure (1-212-998-0178)– [email protected]

!! Contact for hardware/operating system issues

•! David Frederick – Manager of Research Databases (1-212-998-0139)– [email protected]

!! Contact for any questions about data availability or software installations

•! If in doubt, contact the stern helpdesk, 212-998-0180

!! [email protected]

24

Questions ???

•! Updated information can be found at http://www.stern.nyu.edu/scrc

25