Outline of finance

The following outline provides an overview and topical guide to []finance:
Finance – the field concerned with how individuals, businesses, and organizations raise, allocate, and manage monetary resources over time, while accounting for the risks associated with their activities and investments.

Overview

The term finance may incorporate any of the following:

The study of money and other assets
The management and control of those assets
Profiling and managing related risks

Fundamental financial concepts

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History

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Post-World War I hyperinflation; see
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Finance terms by field

Accounting (financial record keeping)

Banking

See articles listed under:

Corporate finance

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Financial management
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Investment management

Personal finance

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Credit and debt
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* Canada
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Public finance

Risk management

Downside risk & Upside risk
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* Computation
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* Alternate measures
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* Extensions
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Constraint finance

Insurance

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* Credit insurance
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Economics and finance

Finance-related areas of economics

Corporate finance theory

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*Uncertainty
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Risk management
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Asset pricing theory

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Arbitrage-free price
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*Complete market & Incomplete markets
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Asset pricing models

Equilibrium pricing
*Equities; foreign exchange and commodities
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*Bonds; other interest rate instruments
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Risk neutral pricing
*Equities; foreign exchange and commodities; interest rates
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Mathematics and finance

Time value of money

Financial mathematics

Mathematical tools

Derivatives pricing

Underlying logic
* Rational pricing
**Risk-neutral measure
**Arbitrage-free pricing
*Brownian model of financial markets
*Martingale pricing
Forward contract
*Forward contract pricing
Futures
*Futures contract pricing
Options
*Valuation of options
* Black–Scholes formula
** Approximations for American options
***Barone-Adesi and Whaley
***Bjerksund and Stensland
***Black's approximation
***Optimal stopping
***Roll–Geske–Whaley
* Black model
* Binomial options model
* Finite difference methods for option pricing
* Garman–Kohlhagen model
* The Greeks
* Lattice model (finance)
* Margrabe's formula
* Monte Carlo methods for option pricing
**Monte Carlo methods in finance
**Quasi-Monte Carlo methods in finance
**Least Square Monte Carlo for American options
* Trinomial tree
* Volatility
** Implied volatility
** Historical volatility
** Volatility smile
** Stochastic volatility
*** Constant elasticity of variance model
*** Heston model
*** SABR volatility model
** Local volatility
***Implied binomial tree
***Implied trinomial tree
***Edgeworth binomial tree
***Johnson binomial tree
Swaps
*Swap valuation
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Interest rate derivatives
*Black model
**caps and floors
**swaptions
**Bond options
*Short-rate models
**Rendleman–Bartter model
**Vasicek model
**Ho–Lee model
**Hull–White model
**Cox–Ingersoll–Ross model
**Black–Karasinski model
**Black–Derman–Toy model
**Kalotay–Williams–Fabozzi model
**Longstaff–Schwartz model
**Chen model
*Forward rate / Forward curve -based models
**LIBOR market model
**Heath–Jarrow–Morton Model
**Cheyette model
Valuation adjustments
*Credit valuation adjustment
*XVA
Yield curve modelling
*Multi-curve framework
*Bootstrapping (finance)
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Portfolio mathematics

Financial markets

Market and instruments

Equity market

Equity valuation

Investment theory

Behavioral finance
Dead cat bounce
Efficient market hypothesis
Market microstructure
Stock market crash
Stock market bubble
January effect
Mark Twain effect
Quantitative behavioral finance
analysis (finance)">Revenue">analysis (finance)
Statistical arbitrage

Bond market

Money market

Commodity market

Commodity
* Asset
* Futures Trading Commission">Futures contract">Futures Trading Commission
* Commodity trade
* Drawdowns
* Forfaiting
* Fundamental analysis
* Futures contract
* Fungibility
* Gold as an investment
* Hedging
* Jesse Lauriston Livermore
* List of traded commodities
* Ownership equity
* Position trader
* Risk (Futures)
* Seasonal traders
* Seasonal spread trading
* Slippage
* Speculation
* Spread trade
* Technical analysis
** Breakout
** Bear market
** Bottom (technical analysis)
** Bull market
** MACD
** Moving average
** Open Interest
** Parabolic SAR
** Point and figure charts
** Resistance
** RSI
** Stochastic oscillator
** Stop loss
** Support
** Top (technical analysis)
* Trade
* Trend

Derivatives market

Forward markets and contracts

Forward contract

Futures markets and contracts

Option markets and contracts

Swap markets and contracts

Derivative markets by underlyings

Equity derivatives

Contract for difference
Exchange-traded fund
*Closed-end fund
*Inverse exchange-traded fund
Equity options
Equity swap
Real estate investment trust
Warrants
*Covered warrant
Interest rate derivatives
LIBOR
Forward rate agreement
Interest rate swap
Interest rate cap
Exotic interest rate option
Bond option
Interest rate future
Money market instruments
Range accrual Swaps/Notes/Bonds
In-arrears Swap
Constant maturity swap or Constant Treasury Swap derivatives
Interest rate Swaption
Bermudan swaptions
Cross currency swaptions
Power Reverse Dual Currency note
Target redemption note
CMS steepener
Snowball
Inverse floater
Strips of Collateralized mortgage obligation
* Interest only
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Ratchet caps and floors
Credit derivatives
Credit default swap
Collateralized debt obligation
Credit default option
Total return swap
Securitization
* Strip financing
Foreign exchange derivative
Basis swap
Currency future
Currency swap
Foreign exchange binary option
Foreign exchange forward
Foreign exchange option
Forward exchange rate
Foreign exchange swap
Foreign exchange hedge
Non-deliverable forward
Power reverse dual-currency note

Financial regulation

Designations and accreditation

Certified Financial Planner
Chartered Financial Analyst
* CFA Institute
Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst
Professional [risk manager]
Chartered Financial Consultant
Securities Institute">Security (finance)">Securities Institute
Independent financial adviser
* Chartered Insurance Institute
Financial Risk Manager
Chartered Market Technician
Certified Financial Technician

Litigation

Liabilities Subject to Compromise

Fraud

Industry bodies

Swaps and Derivatives Association">Swap (finance)">Swaps and Derivatives Association
National Association of Securities Dealers

Regulatory and supervisory bodies

International

European Union

Regulatory bodies by country

United Kingdom

United States legislation

Actuarial topics

Actuarial topics

Valuation

Underlying theory

Context

Considerations

Other approaches

Financial modeling

Cash flow
* Cash flow forecasting
* Cash flow statement
* Operating cash flow
* EBIDTA
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* Free cash flow
** Free cash flow to firm
** Free cash flow to equity
* Dividends
* Cash is king
* Mid-year adjustment
* Owner earnings
Required return
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*Cost of capital
*Weighted average cost of capital
*Cost of equity
*Cost of debt
*Capital asset pricing model
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**Pure play method
*Arbitrage pricing theory
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*T-model
**cash-flow T-model
Terminal value
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*Forecast period (finance)
*long term growth rate
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Forecasted financial statements
*Financial forecast
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*Revenue
**Revenue model
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**Net sales
*Costs
**Profit margin
***Gross margin
***Net margin
***Cost of goods sold
**Operating expenses
***Operating ratio
**Cost driver
**Fixed cost
**Variable cost
**Overhead cost
**Value chain
**activity based costing
**common-size analysis
**Profit model
*Capital
**Capital structure
**common-size analysis
**Equity (finance)
***Shareholders' equity
***Book value
***Retained earnings
**Financial capital
***Long term asset / Fixed asset
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***Long-term liabilities
****Debt-to-equity ratio
****Debt-to-capital ratio
**Working capital
***Current asset
***Current liability
***Inventory turnover / Days in inventory
***Cost of goods sold
***Debtor & Creditor days
***Days sales outstanding
***Days payable outstanding

Portfolio theory

General concepts

Modern portfolio theory

Post-modern portfolio theory

Approaches
*Behavioral portfolio theory
*Stochastic portfolio theory
**Chance-constrained portfolio selection
*Maslowian portfolio theory
*Dedicated portfolio theory
*Risk parity
*Tail risk parity
Optimization considerations
*Pareto efficiency
*Bayesian efficiency
*Multiple-criteria decision analysis
*Multi-objective optimization
*Stochastic dominance
**Second-order Stochastic dominance
**Marginal conditional stochastic dominance
*Downside risk
*Volatility skewness
*Semivariance
*Expected shortfall, average value at risk, expected tail loss )
*Tail value at risk
*Statistical dispersion
*Discounted maximum loss
*Indifference price
Measures
*Dual-beta
**Downside beta
**Upside beta
*Upside potential ratio
*Upside risk
*Downside risk
*Sortino ratio
*Omega ratio
*Bias ratio
*Information ratio
**Active return
**Active risk
*Deviation risk measure
*Distortion risk measure
*Spectral risk measure
Optimization models
*Black–Litterman model
*Universal portfolio algorithm
*Resampled efficient frontier

Performance measurement

Mathematical techniques

Quantitative investing

Financial software tools

Financial modeling applications

Corporate Finance

Business valuation / stock valuation – especially via discounted cash flow, but including other valuation approaches
Scenario planning and management decision making
Capital budgeting, including cost of capital calculations
Financial statement analysis / ratio analysis
Revenue related: forecasting, analysis
Project finance modeling
Cash flow forecasting
Credit decisioning: Credit analysis, Consumer credit risk; impairment- and provision-modeling
Working capital- and treasury management; asset and liability management
Management accounting: Activity-based costing, Profitability analysis, Cost analysis, Whole-life cost

Quantitative finance

Option pricing and calculation of their "Greeks"
Other derivatives, especially interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives and exotic derivatives
Modeling the term structure of interest rates and credit spreads
Credit valuation adjustment, CVA, as well as the various XVA
Credit risk, counterparty credit risk, and regulatory capital: EAD, PD, LGD, PFE
Structured product design and manufacture
Portfolio optimization and Quantitative investing more generally; see further re optimization methods employed.
Financial risk modeling: value at risk, stress testing, "sensitivities" analysis

Financial institutions

Education

For the typical finance career path and corresponding education requirements see:
*Financial analyst generally, and esp. § Qualification, discussing various investment, banking, and corporate roles
*Quantitative analyst, and, specifically re roles in quantitative finance
Business education lists undergraduate degrees in business, commerce, accounting and economics; "finance" may be taken as a major in most of these, whereas "quantitative finance" is almost invariably postgraduate, following a math-focused Bachelors; the most common degrees for investment, banking, and corporate roles are:
*Bachelor of Business Administration
*Bachelor of Commerce
*Bachelor of Accountancy
*Bachelor of Economics
*Bachelor of Finance – the undergraduate version of the MSF below
*The tagged BS / BA "in Finance", or less common, "in Investment Management" or "in Personal Finance"
At the postgraduate level, the MBA, MCom and MSM similarly offer training in finance generally; at this level there are also the following specifically focused master's degrees, with MSF the broadest – see for their focus and inter-relation:
*Master of Applied Finance
*Master of Commerce in Finance
*Master of Computational Finance
*Master's in Corporate Finance
*Master of Finance
* Master's in Financial Analysis
*Master of Financial Economics
*Master of Financial Engineering
*Master of Financial Planning
*Master's in Financial Management
*Master of Financial Mathematics
*Master's in Financial Risk Management
*Master's in Investment Management
*Master of Mathematical Finance
*Master of Quantitative Finance
*Master of Science in Finance
*MS in Fintech
Doctoral-training in finance is usually a requirement for academia, but not relevant to industry
*quants often enter the profession with PhDs in disciplines such as physics, mathematics, engineering, and computer science, and learn finance "on the job”
*as an academic field, finance theory is studied and developed within the disciplines of management, economics, accountancy, and applied / financial mathematics.
For specialized roles, there are various Professional Certifications in financial services ; the are arguably:
*Association of Corporate Treasurers
*Certificate in Quantitative Finance
*Certified Financial Planner
*Certified International Investment Analyst
*Certified Treasury Professional
*Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst
*Chartered Financial Analyst
*Chartered Wealth Manager
*CISI Diploma in Capital Markets
*Financial Risk Manager
*Professional Risk Manager
Various organizations offer executive education, CPD, or other focused training programs, including:
*Amsterdam Institute of Finance
*Canadian Securities Institute
*Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
*GARP
*Global Risk Institute
*ICMA Centre
*The London Institute of Banking & Finance
*New York Institute of Finance
*PRMIA
*South African Institute of Financial Markets
*Swiss Finance Institute
See also qualifications in related fields:
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*Actuarial credentialing and exams
*Business education
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