Every mandatory courses from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd term should be taken.

The student will achieve the ability to work with technical and complex problems in Finance, and look for a solution in the Academic references. He or she will learn how to apply the scientific methods for different business and financial problems. Students will learn how to organize and write and technical or academic report, and how to present and defend it from a group of professionals or experts. Students will learn how to find the answer for a new and specific problem according to academic publications. In addition, the student will improve his (her) capacity to criticize and propose improvements in methodology or in the hypothesis. Students will also develop his (her) skills in summarizing, analyzing and planning, as they must do a summarize of several academic papers about a specific topic.

Students must do an individual project to demonstrate his (her) knowledge and skills learned during the master. Each student must do a survey of a research topic about a new and relevant research question in Finance. This survey must have between 22-32 pages, including all (references, tables, appendix). They must demonstrate that they really have a good knowledge of that topic, the methodologies employed, and the results. Students will be able to focus in questions as: - Mutual Funds and Performance Evaluation - Trading constraints and effects on Financial Markets - New Techniques on Portfolio Management - Microstructure topcis (Liquidity measures) - High Frequency Trading (HFT) - Trading Strategies using Genetic Algorithms - Initial Public Offerings - Bankruptcy prediction (analysis of methodologies) - Fixed income valuation under an intensity based setting - Conflicts of interest with a firm - GARCH models for volatility forecasting - Venture capital - Law and Finance topics - Activist Investors - ESG in Finance (Asset Allocation and Asset Pricing)

PROCEDURE TO SELECT A TOPIC: During the last week of the third mini-semester, students will receive the list of proposed topics for the Master¿s Thesis, together with the tutors assigned to each topic. Students will then have one week to indicate their preferred topics. Given that some tutors can supervise only a limited number of Master¿s Theses, if more than that number of students request the same topic, the topic will be assigned to the student with the highest grade point average obtained during the first two mini-semesters of the Master in Finance. During the first week of the fourth mini-semester, the final list of Master¿s Thesis topics will be published, indicating the students assigned to each topic as well as the corresponding tutor. GUIDE PROVIDED BY THE TUTOR: The tutor will provide the topic and 4 or 5 significant references to help the student to understand the research topic and the main research done around that literature. Each student should read those papers and have a first meeting with the tutor to plan the project and present his ideas (it could be by email if it is agreed). Each student might have another meeting with the tutor to show his/her progress and to solve some questions (methodology, databases, etc.). Finally, the students will send a final version to the tutor to be checked, so they can receive some comments or improvements suggestions. There will not be more meetings or contacts with the tutor. After that comments, the student must incorporate them and present the EMP. EMP DEPOSIT: During the week after the fourth term exams, student will have to completely terminate the EMP and deliver the final version to the Postgraduate Office in Puerta de Toledo. This is the final version that will be evaluated by the tutor and Academic Committee in the Defense. EMP PUBLIC DEFENSE: Students must do a public presentation of his (her) project. Students must prepare a presentation in Power Point and present it in a maximum of 20 minutes (the time for each presentation must be between 15-20 minutes). Students have to present the objective of that research topic, the main papers and the results, demonstrating that he/she really knows and understands that literature. The Evaluation Committee will be composed of two professors. After that the presentation, the Committee has 10-15 minutes to ask any question related with the project.