Credential in Quantitative Financial Economics (QFE)

What is the QFE?

• Credential offered by UNC Economics Department

• 3 Courses + 2 Bootcamps:– ECON 425: Financial Economics

– ECON 525: Advanced Financial Economics

– ECON 493: Practicum in Quantitative Financial Economics

• Outside speakers

• Recruiting opportunities

Purpose of the QFE

Provide students with:

• Theoretical knowledge of financial markets

• Practical experience of financial market transactions

• Exposure to advanced quantitative finance tools

• Opportunities to network with, and learn from, professionals in the field

• Internship and full-time job search support

Career Path

A few potential career paths for QFE students

• Trading

• Strategy/research

• Portfolio Management

• Risk Management

• (Market) Economist

• Economic/Statistical Consulting

• Data Analyst (Financial and Non-Financial)

Complimentary Graduate Studies

• Quantitative Finance

• Financial Engineering

• Data Science

• Economics

• Finance

Courses & BootcampsBootcamp #1 – Excel for Financial Economists (Early Fall)

• REQUIRED for QFE, NOT required for Econ 425

• Open to anyone; preference to QFE track

• Full day training in a small, hands-on setting

• Basic Excel Functionality

• Best Practices for data handling

• Advanced features: matrix multiplication, optimization

• Statistical tools: data analysis toolpak

• Knowledge Check

Courses & BootcampsECON 425: Financial Economics – 3 Credits (Fall)

– Open to all students.

– An examination of financial institutions and markets, their role in economic conditions, and the use of macroeconomic policies in affecting those conditions

– How to compute returns

– How to measure risk

– How to allocate portfolios under uncertainty

– How to price various assets

– Macro analysis and portfolio management

Courses & BootcampsBootcamp #2 – Matlab for Financial Economists (Winter Break)

• REQUIRED for QFE

• Online, self paced

• Intro to Matlab interface

• Scripting

• Basic Econometrics

• APIs

• Databases

• Knowledge Check

Courses & BootcampsECON 525: Advanced Financial Economics – 3 Credits* (Spring)

– Open only to QFE students

– A survey of the financial econometrics theory, with applications to portfolio and risk management

– Focus on investment management problems and how to tackle them

– How to forecast returns and volatility

– Advanced portfolio allocation and risk management

– Seminar-style classes – a lot of student participation

– Term paper written with Professional Research Partners

* Counts as 500-level course required for Economics major

Courses & BootcampsECON 493: Practicum in Quant. Fin. Econ. – 1 Credit (Spring)

– Open only to QFE students

– Lab-style course where students develop and test quantitative methods used by finance professionals

– Focus on computational implementation

– Follows closely the material in 525

– How to acquire, store, and analyze market data

– How to design, test, and implement strategies

The Training

Financial Economic Theory | Statistics & Econometrics | Computational Tools & Data Sources

Extracurricular

• Tar Heel Alpha

– Student-managed investment club

• Guest speakers

– Academics and practitioners

• Research Opportunities

– Mayo Summer Research Fellowship

• Recruiting

– Networking events and resume drops

Professional Research Partners (PRP)

• NASDAQ

• Citadel

• BP

• BAML

• Cardinal

• LaunchPad

• Nanovest

• Morgan Creek

• Citizens Capital

• Wells Fargo

• 95 Impact

• Hatteras

• Crabel

• Old Well

• Cornerstone

• Fidus

• Barclays

• Eli Global

• Drobny

• Vanderbilt Endow.

• Microsoft

• Crabel

• Wisdom Tree

• UNC-MC

• RidgeCrest

• Evalueserve…….

Recruiting / Networking

Recommended ScheduleYear Fall Spring Summer

Freshman ECON 101: Introduction to Economics ECON 410: Intermediate Theory: Price

and Distribution

Sophomore ECON 400: Introduction to Statistics

and Econometrics

ECON 420: Intermediate Theory:

Money, Income, and Employment

ECON 570: Applied Econometric

Analysis

Internship

Junior ECON 425: Financial Markets and

Economic Fluctuations

ECON 525: Topics in Quantitative

Financial Economics

ECON 493: Practicum in Quantitative

Financial Economics

Internship

or

Mayo

Summer

Research

Fellowship

Senior ECON 5xx

Tar Heel Alpha

Tar Heel Alpha

How to join

• Pre-requisites: ECON 101, 400, 410, 420

• Application for Spring posted ~mid-October

– Majors, Minors, GPA

– Relevant Classes

– Programming

– Work experience and career goals

– Bootcamp deliverables & knowledge checks

Contact Us

• Visit us at http://qfe.web.unc.edu

• Join our listserv by emailing to qfe.unc.edu@gmail.com;

– Subject = “Listserv”;

– Leave body of the message blank