Finance is the lifeblood of business.  Without knowledge of the financial implications of business decisions, managers can make serious mistakes.  Proper financial analysis, however, will help business leaders make the proper choices that in turn add value for the firm’s stakeholders, reflect the preferences of consumers, and facilitate economic growth and prosperity as innovative products and services receive the proper level of support from investors.  From an academic standpoint, finance sits at the intersection of many business disciplines: using economic analysis of accounting statements, financial researchers and managers discern and enact proper corporate strategies, including how to make better decisions about everything from marketing activities to hiring decisions to information technology implementation.

The recent global financial crisis affected almost everyone on earth, from sub-prime homeowners in Miami to municipal investment funds in Norway.  Finance majors learn about the supply of and demand for investment capital, and how market actors can sometimes behave irrationally.  Our classes address issues such as how repeated boom-and-bust cycles occur, what their implications are for financial managers, and how financial markets affect every other sector of the economy.  As a finance major, you will learn about how individuals can profit even when the overall market is failing, and how investors (and companies) can protect themselves against risk using hedging strategies and derivatives

Finance majors at CNU take a sequence of classes that culminates in a writing-intensive, quantitative research course, where each student will make buy/sell recommendations for companies in a particular industry.  Recent student papers examined the following industries and topics:

  • What firm in the health care distribution sector is most worthy of investment?
  • What is the ideal amount of debt (relative to equity) for firms in the pharmaceutical sector?
  • How do fluctuations in oil prices and global economic growth affect the profitability of airlines?
  • Should a shoe industry investor prefer to buy stock in Skechers, or in Wolverine?

 

 

 

 

 


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Finance graduates earn incomes that consistently rank among the highest of all university majors. A finance degree offers a lot of flexibility in terms of both immediate employment opportunities and graduate programs.  Because finance majors are exposed to intensive quantitative training paired with real-world business skills, many employers seek them out.  Finance majors also bring useful skills to nonprofit organizations and charities, and are often great fund-raisers that help further social causes for the greater good.