Intermediate Finance Trading in Queens College CUNY
Queens College

BUS 341W: Intermediate Finance
Instructor: Luc Marest
Fall 2018
Written Assignment
1/ Assignment
2/ Content
3/ Objective
4/ Organization
5/ Quality of writing
6/ Guide for the assignment
7/ List of optional material (other books and articles)

Intermediate Finance Trading in Queens College Assignment

The total number of pages should be 5. Be careful, graphs or tables can be very important and useful, but it doesn’t count in term of space taken in the paper. You need to write 15 pages of words.
The assignment is divided in three separate papers. The dates of submission are provided on Blackboard.
This is a paper written individually; it is not a group project.
The evaluation of the paper will be based on the content, the organization, and the quality of writing.
Content:
The paper is a report about your trading activities in the Queens College Trading Competition, and each one of them should have 5 pages.
The topics may vary. It depends on your trading experience.
It could be about:
i/ your strategies: what securities you selected and why, what strategies you adopted, how successful your strategies were, what you would have done differently, what you learned from it, etc.
ii/ your observation on the relationship between different markets, global macro strategies
iii/ the relationship between business cycle and financial markets
iv/ relationship between events and evolution of prices in financial markets
v/ relationship between political or geopolitical situations and financial markets
vi/ quantitative approaches you developed
vii/ specific firms, industries, financial instruments related to your trading.
etc.
The list is not exhaustive. It must be related to your trading activities, so to current events even if you can incorporate historical perspectives.
Also, it has to be an original analysis.
A list of resources is provided on the website of the trading competition but you can use any other material.
Objective
You have to demonstrate that you have the ability to come up with a deep, interesting and original analysis.
It is a document you could present to an interviewer, a boss, or publish online.
Organization:
Basically, you should organize your paper the following way.
Introduction: It should start with general statements to introduce the subject and then you should explain what you will write about and the general content of the different parts.
Part 1: You are free to organize your parts as you want. It has to have clear different parts with a logical evolution in the writing. You can have more parts if you want as long as it is well organized.
Part 2:
Part 3:
Conclusion: It is a summary of your paper and it should be short.

Intermediate Finance Trading in Queens College References

You must mention your sources and have a list of references at the end of the paper. It is important not to use only one source.
Quality of writing:
Here is a link about how to write a paper in economics:
Deirdre McCloskey: “Economical Writing” Economic Inquiry 24(2) (Apr 1985): 187-222 [reprinted in UCLA Writing Program {Ellen Strenski, ed.}, Cross-Disciplinary Conversations about Writing (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1989)]; reprinted with revisions as The Writing of Economics (in second ed., Economical Writing, 1999).
http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/pdf/Article_86.pdf
A book that could be useful is:
Roy Peter Clark, “Writing Tools: 50 essential Strategies for Every Writer”
You can get also the help from the “Writing at Queens” department:
http://writingatqueens.qwriting.org/the-writing-center/
It is very important that you avoid plagiarism:
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/history/plagiarism/index.html
Guide for the assignment: I will get rid of points if these requirements (titles, organization, number of pages, etc…) are not respected.
1/ The total number of pages should be 5. Be careful: graphs or tables can be very important and useful, but it doesn’t count in term of space taken in the paper. You need to write 15 pages of words.
It can be double spaced and the font shouldn’t be bigger than 12.
2/ This is a paper written individually; it is not a group project.
3/ The evaluation of the paper will be based on the content, the organization, and the quality of writing.
a/ Content: What should be in the paper is described in the writing assignment description above.
b/ Organization: basically, you should organize your paper the way it was described above.
Each of these parts should have a title so it can be read clearly.
The introduction should be something like half a page. It includes a general introduction of the topic, the more specific question that you want to answer, the brief description of the different parts that you are going to develop.
Each part should be composed of clear sub-parts, clearly separated in paragraphs. You have to be able to construct those parts in a way that you don’t have more than 5 or 6 big paragraphs, and themselves shouldn’t have more than 3 or 4 subparts.
The conclusion is a brief summary of your paper (half a page) emphasizing on the main point. You can also mention questions that arise from the analysis you did, or potential need for reflection on some parts.
In the reference part, you have to mention your sources.
c/ Quality: Be clear. It is critical that you create a logic we can follow and that makes sense. You have to tell a story; it is not a stock of words or concepts.
The best way to proceed is the following:
First read carefully papers or articles and put briefly their ideas on paper.
Second, do a brainstorming to gather ideas
Third, organize these ideas logically, creating outlines for your parts.
After your outline is finished, then write the body of your essay.
Then, probably you have then a better idea of how to write your introduction and your conclusion.
Reread and revise many times. It has to sound right.
Make sure you have very good links between paragraphs.

Intermediate Finance Trading in Queens College Summary

Provide a title for the conclusion, each part, the conclusion and the reference part, so it is clear.
4/ You absolutely have to mention your sources.
5/ It is very important that you avoid plagiarism. Not only it is a legal necessity, but it is also a question of fairness and honesty. Moreover, it has to be a habit to formulate or reformulate ideas your own way: an intellectual journey is the continual search for better explanations. It is good and important to always to recognize honestly the contribution from others, but mainly you have to be truthful to yourself. It is a quest.
6/ Don’t use quotes. In the current exercise, it is better if you avoid it: first we do here a training exercise so you have to develop your style, and second you don’t have much space for that kind of luxury.
7/ It is a rigorous intellectual exercise that takes times and precision. Usually, you need to rewrite many times some parts until you find the right way to write it, so don’t be discouraged in that regard. You have to find your own voice, but it has to be correct and clear.
8/ Use the spelling & grammar check in Word. The presentation in the business world makes also a difference.
Provide a paper version (pdf form with 2 pages per sheet, one side) and you have to send also an electronic version before the deadline.
IMPORTANT:
The stocks I traded are the following:
BABA
NVDA
SIVB
XLU
VOO
QQQ
Google
Amazon
So you can talk about what has been going on with this stock in the month of November and beginning of December