Kent Centre for Finance

The paper ‘Objective Prior for the Number of Degrees of Freedom of a t Distribution’ jointly authored by Professor Stephen Walker and Cristiano Villa is to be published in the Journal of Bayesian Analysis.

Students on the MSc in Finance, Investment and Risk programme took part in a session in the School of Mathematics Finance Lab to explore further the functionality and analytics offered by Bloomberg platform. The session led by Bloomberg analysis and development team, provided an opportunity for the students and staff to explore the possibilities for the design and development of new finance applications using Bloomberg.

Kent Business School has organised a trip to Bloomberg for the new cohort of students. Thus, students from MSc Financial Markets will visit Bloomberg on Nov 8th and students from MSc Financial Services in Banking will visit Bloomberg on Nov 29th. These visits will be followed up by a visit to Bank of England.

On Friday 25th October Dr. Moorad Choudhry, RBS treasurer, will give a plenary talk on THE FUTURE OF BANK RISK MANAGEMENT: STRATEGIC ALM in Kent Business School. Students from MSc Financial Markets and MSc Financial Services in Banking will have the opportunity to hear about recent developments in Banking and Investment Sector from one of the leading practitioners.

On 3rd October Richard Hong from Bloomberg gave a plenary talk to students from MSc Financial Markets and MSc Financial Services in Banking. Students found the talk very interesting given that their curriculum includes real-world applications using data from Bloomberg. Kent Business School will provide short training sessions for students who would like to take the Bloomberg Certificate exam, later in the year.

Jhaneshi Jugessur and Nainam Seedoyal who successfully completed the Masters in Finance, Investment and Risk in 2013-2013 and gained Distinction in the final classification, have been awarded scholarships by the CFA Institute for the CFA examinations. Each year the CFA Institute awards scholarships to the students with the highest achievement record on this programme.

12 September 2013 – The visit was organised by the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science for the Masters students of Finance, Investment Risk programme. The students toured the Bloomberg offices and took part in a specially designed training session linked to the programme. Following the Bloomberg visit the students visited the London Metal Exchange and experienced at first hand the workings of a functioning trading floor.

Student’s comment: “The visit was great. The Bloomberg visit and the training sessions were very useful and it was interesting to see how real traders operate.”

12 September 10 — University of Kent has become the latest university to be welcomed into the CFA Institute University Recognition Program. The MSc in Finance, Investment and Risk has been acknowledged as incorporating at least 70 percent of the CFA Program Candidate Body of Knowledge (CBOK) and placing emphasis on the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice within the program. This program positions students well to obtain the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation, which has become the most respected and recognized investment credential in the world.

Entry into the CFA Institute University Recognition Program signals to potential students, employers, and the marketplace that the MSc in Finance, Investment and Risk’s curriculum is closely tied to professional practice and is well-suited to preparing students to sit for the CFA examinations. Through participation in this program, The School of Mathematics, statistics and Actuarial Science is eligible to receive a limited number of student scholarships for the CFA Program each year.

Prof Radu Tunaru has been part of the organising committee and he has also been selected as one of the tutors on the Doctoral Training programme at the conference.

In addition, Prof. Radu Tunaru has presented the paper “Identifying the Fundamental Economic Trend of Commercial Real-Estate in UK: with Applications to Pricing IPD derivatives” in one of the parallel sessions.
The conference had as Keynote Speaker Professor John Campbell from Harvard University who gave the Keynote Speech entitled “Understanding Volatility Risk”.