The course deals with a collection of concepts, constructs, and mathematical models that have been created to help deal with (in a rational manner) a portion of the myriad of problems that arise in the financial arena. There are two major themes in the course:

• How to decide the best course of action in an investment situation, e.g. how to devise the best portfolio, how to devise the optimal investment strategy for managing an investment, how to select a group of investment projects.
• How to determine the correct arbitrage-free, fair, or equilibrium value of an asset, e.g. the value of a firm, the value of a bond, the value of a derivative such as a put or call option.

Prerequisites: Individuals should have a technical background roughly equivalent to a bachelor's degree in engineering, mathematics, science, or economics; or have some familiarity with basic calculus, linear algebra, and probability theory. Most of the mathematics is at the level of undergraduate calculus.