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Oranee Tawatnuntachai, Ph.D., CFA

Associate Professor of Finance, Business Administration

Dr. Tawatnuntachai joined Penn State Harrisburg in fall 1999. She has taught Financial Management, Problems in Finance, Corporate Finance, Investments, and Portfolio Management. In 2008, Dr. Tawatnuntachai received the Capital College Award for Teaching Excellence from Penn State Harrisburg. In 2010, she received the Teaching Fellow Award for Teaching Excellence from Penn State Alumni Association. Her work has been published at several journals such as Financial Review, Financial ManagementJournal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Financial Research. Her paper titled “Diversification benefits and persistence of US-based global bond funds” was recognized as Distinguished Paper Award at 2005 Southwest Finance Association Meeting. Her paper titled “Dynamic style analysis, performance evaluation and investment behavior of global bond funds” won Outstanding Investments Paper Award at 2008 Eastern Finance Association Meeting. Dr. Tawatnuntachai is also a CFA charterholder.

Corporation Finance

FIN 301 | Fall 2017

Course Description

The objective of this course is to provide business students with fundamentals of corporate finance. Students will learn not only financial concepts but also how to apply basic financial tools in real-life settings. Although the course is designed to be general for all business majors, it covers many important topics needed for advanced finance classes.

The course content is divided into four sections:

  • Section 1 covers an overview of corporate finance, financial statement analysis, and Time Value of Money, one of the most important concepts in finance.
  • Section 2 deals with valuation of assets specifically bonds and stocks, and some basic investment concepts such as risk-return tradeoff and the Capital Asset Pricing Model.
  • Section 3 discusses capital budgeting process – cost of capital estimation, capital budgeting techniques, and cash flow estimation.
  • Section 4 highlights capital structure, dividend policy and international finance.

Finance provides many tools that can be used in decision-making. This course emphasizes how to construct financial tools and how to apply them. As such content for the most part is analytical as opposed to descriptive. Mathematical techniques in financial analysis will be frequently presented. However, no knowledge of calculus and matrix algebra is necessary.

Course Format

This course combines in class and online activities to maximize student learning. Each week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. For each Monday, we will discuss financial concepts/theories and their applications through simple problems. Students are required to complete more problems by submitting reviews or read assigned articles prior to Wednesday class. For each Wednesday, students will work with their group on the review problems or the articles and conclude the concepts / theories for the week. After Wednesday, students will complete a quiz to test their understanding of the material and prepare for an exam. The quiz problems will be discussed in the review session prior to each exam.

Evidence of Success

Learning objectives, assignment and assessment descriptions, scoring guides or rubrics, and performance data

Learning Objectives

After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

1. Analyze financial statements of publicly traded companies;
2. Apply Time Value of Money to solve financial problems;
3. Estimate bond and stock prices;
4. Explain factors affecting bond and stock prices;
5. Make basic investment decisions;
6. Apply capital budgeting to evaluate projects; and
7. Understand the effects of leverage, dividend payments and exchange rates.

Assignment and Assessment Descriptions

Reviews (10%): There are thirteen online reviews; ten are counted for the final grade. Each review is worth one point. The reviews contain knowledge from Monday’s class discussion and from ACCTG 211, STAT 200, ECON 102 or ECON 104. See review questions in the class notes.

Review Policy:

  • For reviews that are surveys, you have only one attempt. For the remaining reviews i.e., required calculations, you have a maximum of three attempts. Only the highest score will be counted for the final grade.
  • No time limit for each attempt for all reviews.
  • All reviews are available in Canvas until midnight of the due dates. Please, no excuse of forgetting to complete the reviews.
  • You must complete reviews on your own.
  • Students are not allowed to help or look at classmates’ reviews.
  • Helping and/or sharing reviews are considered a violation of Academic Integrity. If students are caught either helping and/or sharing reviews, all parties who get involved (i.e., both providers and receivers) will automatically get zero for the review category. That is, 10% is gone!
  • To ensure that students complete reviews on their own, students will be randomly selected to explain solutions in class on Wednesday. If the students cannot explain the solutions, a 40% penalty will be applied. If the students are absent, a 60% penalty will be applied.

Quizzes (10%): Twelve online quizzes are assigned to test your understanding and encourage you to study for exams. Ten quizzes will be counted for the final grade. One point for each quiz. The two lowest scores will be automatically dropped for the final grade.

Quiz Policy:

  • For each quiz, you have only one attempt that lasts 20 minutes.
  • Each quiz is open for five days from Wednesday, 12:30 p.m. to Sunday, 11:59 p.m. You can start a quiz anytime. However, if you start a quiz later than 11:40 p.m. on a due date, you will have less than 20 minutes.
  • Before attempting a quiz, you need to prepare (no time for opening the notes or textbook) and be certain that you have access to reliable internet due to time limit.
  • For a dispute, you must do so immediately after submitting a quiz. To be fair to all students, any dispute received not immediately after a submission will not be considered.
  • There will be NO make-up quiz in any circumstance because only 10 out of 12 quizzes will be counted for the final grade. No excuse at the end of the semester, please!
  • You must complete all quizzes on your own. You are not allowed to help or look at classmates’ quizzes.
  • Helping and/or sharing quizzes are considered a violation of Academic Integrity. If students are caught either helping and/or sharing quizzes, all parties who get involved (i.e., both providers and receivers) will automatically get zero for the quiz category. That is, all 10% is gone! Students will also be subject to further penalty.
  • To ensure that students complete quizzes on their own, students will be randomly selected to explain solutions in class during the review sessions. If the students cannot explain the solutions, a 40% penalty will be applied. If the students are absent, a 60% penalty will be applied.
  • You will not have access to quizzes and solutions unless you take quizzes. Not all quiz questions will be discussed during the review sessions unless you ask questions.

Small Group Project – Financial Statement Analysis (12%): To enhance your understanding of financial statement analysis, you are required to analyze financial statements of a publicly traded company. The project must be completed by a group of two members. Both members will receive the same grade. See the project details and objectives in the class notes.

Project Policy:

  • Your group must register your choice of a publicly traded company in Canvas before starting the project. No group is allowed to analyze the same company. First come, first served.
  • Submit both Word and Excel files in Canvas by the due date.
  • To be fair to other groups, a 10% penalty per day will be applied for late submission unless all group members have reasonable excuses beyond their control and provide a sufficient document.
  • You are allowed to discuss or work with other groups; however copying project/spreadsheets with or without permission is prohibited.
  • For students who copy projects/spreadsheets or allow their projects to be copied, they will automatically receive zero for the project.
  • Be careful of plagiarism. Students will be required to select a new company and write a new report if they plagiarize. An exception will be given for ratio interpretation. See plagiarism resources in Canvas. You can use Turn-It-In to check for plagiarism.

Exams (60%): There will be three exams (two midterms and a final) for this course. Each exam weighs equally for the final grade. You must take all exams in order to pass the course. The exams will be a combination of multiple-choices, problems and/or short essays. A study guide and extra office hours will be provided for each exam.

Exam Policy:

  • NO “late” makeup exam unless you have a reasonable excuse beyond your control AND provide a sufficient document e.g., medical proof and a copy of police report. If students have reasonable excuses but cannot provide a sufficient document, a 40% penalty will be applied. In these circumstances, you should contact me as soon as possible.
  • For students who cannot take exams on assigned dates, you must inform me at least one week before the exams for arrangements.
  • Absolutely no cheating! If students are caught cheating on any exam, they will automatically receive an “F” for the entire course. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, bringing notes to exams without the instructor’s permission, looking at classmates’ exams, and/or copying answers/programs/work from classmates with or without their permission.

Participation (8%): You are required to participate in group activities on Wednesday. To encourage you to read the Wall Street Journal and other financial newspapers/journals so that you see applications of financial theories discussed in class, you will be asked to provide a summary of financial news at the beginning of Wednesday class. See the assignment of financial news update in Canvas.

I strongly encourage you to come to class. Finance is not an easy subject that students can read over. From my experience, students who miss class often do poorly on exams and hence get bad grades. I also encourage you to raise questions in class and engage in class activities. Often, your questions enhance your classmates’ understanding. Keep in mind ‘there is no dumb question!’ Under the assumption that students who are absent cannot participate, attendance is counted 40%, and quality of participation is counted 60%. Anonymous peer evaluation will be factored into quality of participation.

Scoring Guide

Scale Grade

A = 94+

A- = 90+

B+ = 86+

B = 83+

B- = 78+

C+ = 72+

C = 66+

D = 60+

F = Below 60

I reserve the right to make any adjustment for the final grade. In most circumstances, the adjustment will benefit students.

Improvement: To encourage students to strive for the best, I often factor in how students improve over semester when assigning a final grade. To be fair to all students and make the improvement factor more objective, students are assigned into one of the four categories based on midterm and final exams.

Performance Data