Friday assignments
For Friday class sessions, every student must turn in a written assignment. The written assignments are to be a summation and interpretation of news items on macroeconomic or business conditions of an international nature as reported in the WSJ or FT or on the Internet. The choice of which item and which source is yours. However, the article should not be about a particular firm or a particular industry. So what sorts of articles are about the global economy? Good choices would include articles about:
changes in the official interest rates in United States, Euro-zone or Japan (that is, changes in interest rates and central bank policy)
changes in the stance of monetary policy in China or economic growth in China (WSJ – China said its economy grew a faster-than-expected 5.3% in the first quarter, driven in large part by Beijing’s push to turbocharge manufacturing)
changes in consumer or producer confidence,
changes in the rate of inflation in the UK, Euro-zone or Japan and what does this mean
These reports should be at least 1 ½ pages, but not more than 4 (if a report is more than four pages, I will return it unread),double-spaced pages in length (12 point type). These reports are assigned to meet three goals: to provide me with samples of your writing; to get you intimately involved with current business conditions in the global economy so that the lectures/discussions in class will be more productive; and to provide examples of how economic data and events can be interpreted within an economic and financial framework, and how news in one country can have significant implications for movements in asset prices not only in that country but in other countries as well.
Format Requirements for the reports: The first page of the report should be the cover page (this page does not count against your page limit) including the title of the project, the author name, and the following statement
…presented as partial fulfillment of the requirements for FIN 798, DePaul University, BIBF, Spring 2024
Each report should include an introduction, a text, and a summary. A bibliography should be included at the end of each report and should follow the below format:
Goodman, Laurie, Kelli Hustad Hueler, and Karl P. Tourville, “A Flood of New GICs,” Best’s Review, 1993, p. 27.
Somewhere in the report you must include a citation of the article you read (periodical and date will suffice). The article from which you write your report cannot be more than 2 weeks old if from a daily source (e.g., Wall Street Journal), or more than 1 issue old if from a weekly/biweekly/monthly publication. Notice how I have placed the source materials (e.g., Best’s Review and The Wall Street Journal) in italic for emphasis. Grammar and clarity will be considered in the grade. Each Session will devote, on average, 30 minutes to the analysis of current economic and financial news and/or discussion of several of the reports, and students will be required to demonstrate their knowledge of the current economic and financial situation. You are advised to familiarize yourself with the University’s definition of, and policy on, plagiarism, as stated in the Student Handbook.