Finance Dissertation Topics
Corporate Finance
- Principals vs Agents
- Importance of shareholder rights’ protection
- The link between the agency problem and company’s value
- The impact of regulation
- Corporate finance and existing legislation
- The logic behind project appraisal
- Net Present Value and the NPV rule
- The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and project appraisal
- Simple and Discounted Payback Methods
- The Profitability index in capital budgeting
- Discounting
- Compounding
- The concept of annuity
- Applications of the TVM in corporate finance
- Key Financial Statements
- Ratio Analysis
- The DuPont Equation
- Financial models and planning
- External financing and growth estimation
- The present value of common stock
- The concept of Free Cash Flows (FCFs)
- The Dividend Discount Model (DDM)
- The Discounted Cash Flows (DCF) Approach
- The residual valuation model
- Relative valuation model and price comparables
- Sensitivity analysis
- Scenario analysis and break-even analysis
- Monte-Carlo simulation and capital budgeting
- The concept of real options
- Decision trees in capital budgeting
- Different types of bonds
- Bonds and interest rates
- Determinants of bond yields
- Equity vs Debt
- The CAPM and the cost of capital
- Estimation of beta and the impact of leverage
- Cost of fixed income securities
- The Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) estimation
- The capital structure and the pie theory
- Optimal capital structure and firm value maximisation
- Financial leverage and firm value
- The Modigliani-Miller Proposition and irrelevance of capital structure
- The impact of taxes on capital policy
- Costs of financial distress
- Tax benefits from debt
- Signalling and capital policy
- The Pecking-Order theory
- Different theories on a dividend policy
- Cash dividends vs Stock buybacks
- Personal taxes and dividend policy
- The Clientele effect and dividend policy
- Different sources of capital
- Stock issuance
- New issues and stock dilution
- Issues of long-term debt
- Preferred vs Common stock
- Types of leases
- Cash flows of leasing
- Leasing vs Buying
- NPV valuation of leasing
- Cash and Net Working Capital
- Short-term financial policy
- Cash management
- Receivables management
- Inventory management
- Different forms of acquisitions
- Costs of acquisitions
- Benefits from acquisitions
- The value from mergers
- Bankruptcy, liquidation and reorganisation
- Z-score model and prediction of bankruptcy
- Interest Rate Parity and Fischer Effect
- International capital budgeting
- The Impact of Exchange rate and political risk
Investment
- Real vs financial assets
- The linkages between financial markets
- Key market players
- The impact of regulation on the financial market
- Money market and cash instruments
- Bond markets
- Equity market and securities
- Derivative markets
- Stock and bond market indexes
- Real estate as an asset class
- Alternative assets and cryptocurrencies
- The concept of Risk and return
- Co-movement between securities and portfolio risk
- The concept of portfolio diversification
- The Markowitz portfolio diversification model
- The Capital Market Line (CML) and the Security Market Line (SML)
- Different approaches to portfolio optimisation
- The CAPM overview
- Assumptions of the CAPM
- Criticism of the model
- Evaluation of the CAPM
- The Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT)
- The Fama-French three-factor model
- The APT, CAPM and the Index model
- Randomness and the EMH
- Implications of the hypothesis
- Critique of the EMH and deviations from the hypothesis
- The criticism of behavioural theory
- Technical analysis and behavioural approach in investment
- Types of fixed-income securities
- Bond characteristics
- Liquidity risk and bond prices
- Interest rate risk and bond prices
- Default risk and bond prices
- Maturity and bond returns
- Bond features
- Bond pricing
- Bond yields
- Yield curve
- Default risk and bond returns
- Interest rate risk
- Bond duration and convexity
- Passive bond management and portfolio immunisation
- Active bond portfolio management
- Macroeconomic analysis and business cycles
- Industry analysis
- Relative Valuation using multiples
- The Gordon’s Growth Rate and Dividend Discount Model
- Price/Earnings multiple
- Free Cash Flow valuation model
- Futures, Options and Swaps
- Hedging using derivatives
- Futures market strategies
- Options market strategies
- Key metrics of portfolio evaluation
- Style analysis
- Globalisation of equity markets
- Benefits from international diversification
- Risks of international portfolio management
- The concept of optimal alpha
- The Treynor-Black model
- The Black-Litterman model
Financial Markets
- The IPO process
- The role of underwriters
- Private Equity (P/E) and Venture Capital
- Secondary equity offering
- The impact of stock dilution
- Market players
- Bond securities
- Key market players
- The link between monetary policy and the bond market
- The linkages between bond securities
- Energy market
- Precious metal market
- Agriculture commodity market
- Portfolio diversification using commodities
Derivatives
- Futures contracts basics and mechanics of trading
- Futures market strategies
- The options contract
- The options strategies
- The Put-Call Parity
- Exotic options
- Black-Scholes model and options pricing
- The binominal tree pricing
- Implied volatility and options prices
