There are links to various parts of the Web, which you may find interesting.

  • Bloomberg Financial Information. Bloomberg provides current information on equity, bond, and foreign exchange markets.
  • The Economist. A non-academic publication with an excellent understanding of modern finance. I find it a great source of ideas for homework assignments and exams.
  • Iowa Electronic Market. When this market started, it provided the opportunity to speculate on (or should I say hedge) the probability that Clinton or Bush or Perot would win the election for President of the United States. The market still has contract on political contests in the U.S., as well as elsewhere, but has added contracts based on financial variables. Trading in this market is with real money, although the maximum invested is limited to $500.
  • Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). FRED provides historical U.S. economic and financial data, including daily U.S. interest rates, monetary and business indicators, exchange rates, and regional economic data.
  • Finance Dictionary. This is an online dictionary of finance terms. There is a long list of acronyms (a favorite in finance) as well as subtopic lists, such as bonds, taxes, and derivatives (options and futures). I don't promise all of these are correct.
  • JP Morgan & Company. JP Morgan has been very involved in risk management techniques. Their RiskMetrics is an approach to measuring a firm's or portfolio's value at risk. This site also has a wide selection of market data.
  • Option Pricing. Professor McDonald has kindly offered to share his option pricing Excel spreadsheets with us. Professor McDonald is one of the professors who teaches the basid derivatives course (Finance 465). He also teaches the advanced derivatives course (Finance 467). The enclosed spreadsheets can be used to price calls and puts using the Black-Scholes formula (which we mentioned in class) and the binomial formula (which we do not discuss in class). These spreadsheets are for your interest only. You can use them to verify the option prices that I use in the class notes and homework assignments. You are not responsible, however, for knowing the option pricing formulas. You will learn these in Finance 465. I have written a brief description of how the functions work [for my Financial Strategy and Tax course (FINC447)]. A more complete description can be found on Professor McDonald's webpage.
  • Professor Petersen's Current Research Interests.
  • Securities and Exchange Commission. This is the Federal agency that regulates securities issues and many (but not all) of the financial markets in the U.S. This link will lead you to the SEC's EDGAR database, which contains many of the documents filed with the SEC. The SEC also posts a description of the forms it requires firms to file.
  • Thirty Ways to Tell if Technology Has Invaded Your Life. This is a geek test. Kellogg is full of geeks. If you fear that you have become one, you can take this test to check. If you discover you are a geek, please let me know.