A Finance Survival Kit

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A Finance Survival Kit

• GEM2508

Frederick H. Willeboordse frederik_at_chaos.nus.edu.s
g
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Briefing and Introduction
Lecture 0
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Why this course?
There are three objectives
To understand what is necessary to take charge of
your personal finances
To acquire the skills to use a good tool
To be able to understand the basic concepts often
used in business
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What is in this course?
The contents are centered around the three
objectives
Methods, strategies and background knowledge
required for accumulating personal wealth
Training in the use of the tool of choice
spreadsheets
Basic financial concepts used in everyday
business
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Who am I?

• Frederick H. Willeboordse
• S12 03-06
• Department of Physics
• Specialized in Complex Systems
• Also ran a business for 5
• years

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Approach
Business, Financial Modeling and Financial
Planning all go hand in hand and we therefore
always face a little bit a chicken and egg
problem. Ill try to tackle this by taking a
three dimensional approach - working from the
outside in.
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Methodology
The course will follow the workshop approach.
This means that lab sessions play a central role.
The lab sessions will end with quizzes that need
to be completed individually.
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Course Outline
Lectures 2 hours per week for a total of 24
lecture hours Lab Sessions8 lab sessions of 2
hours each
The lab sessions will focus on acquiring Excel
skills and the working out of problems
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Lab Session Slots

• Tentatively, the lab session slots are
• (The details will be confirmed later as the lab
  sessions will only start in week 3)
• Wednesdays 10-12, 12-14, 14-16
• Thursdays 14-16
• Fridays 10-12, 12-14, 14-16
• Location S13, Level 4, Lab 1

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Lab Session Registration
http//chaos.nus.edu.sg/cgi-bin/GEM2508/register.p
l
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Lab Session Registration
You can see for which groups you friends signed
up and the practical allocation once it's
completed at this URL http//chaos.nus.edu.sg/cg
i-bin/GEM2508/display.pl
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References
All the lecture notes as well as other relevant
materials can be found on my web site
athttp//chaos.nus.edu.sg/teaching/GEM2508 The
required text book is The Web. The web has a
lot of excellent information but it also has a
lot of garbage. Its up to you to decide which is
which ?. Why the web? Its free and it forces
you to think critically. A few excellent books
are also mentioned on the course home page.
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Course Contents
Lectures 1-3 The Basic Financial
Statements Lectures 4-5 Budgets, Running a
Company Lectures 6-7 Evaluating a Companys
Performance Lectures 8-10 Investing in the
Company Lectures 11-12 Accumulating Assets The
chapters are organized mainly from the investors
point of view and could be organized entirely
differently. This does not affect the basic
content.