Finance Lab

15.453 Finance Lab

The Finance Lab (Fin-Lab) is a graduate-level course providing immersive learning for MIT Master of Finance students, MBA students, and others who have completed the prerequisites. In this course, students work in teams on substantive projects proposed by external hosts. Our goal is to provide students with a meaningful opportunity to partner with leading industry practitioners on important topical finance problems, while helping them to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and introducing them to the broader financial community. The course is full-time during the month of January, and includes some preparation and follow-up before and after the full-time experience.

Sample projects

Investment research

• Use machine learning and AI techniques to research alpha signals in social media data (Glassdoor, etc.) 
• Investigate a probability-based model for emerging markets currency crisis  
• Build a trading strategy for rates and currencies using the volatility risk premium

Venture capital, PE, and impact investing

• Conduct a comprehensive valuation and impact analysis for a VC portfolio company in the renewable energy space 
• Perform valuation analysis for a late-stage growth company in the SAAS space 
• Identify attractive PE targets in the small family-owned US manufacturing segment
• Build detailed valuation models for startup healthcare diagnostics company in South Asia

Trading and risk analysis

• Use transaction-level intraday bond data to construct measures of overall bond market liquidity 
• Perform factor analysis on illiquid alternative investments like private equity and distressed credit
• Analyze notional vs. actual trading liquidity in fixed income ETFs; factor crowding in strategies 

Finance Lab

The Finance Lab (Fin-Lab) is a key element of MIT Sloan’s Master of Finance program. In this graduate-level finance course, students work in teams on substantive projects proposed by external host companies. Our goal is to provide students with a meaningful opportunity to partner with leading industry practitioners on important topical finance problems, while helping them to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and introducing them to the broader financial community. The course is full-time during the month of January and includes some preparation and follow-up before and after the full-time experience.

The projects

We seek projects that address practical business problems, to be completed by a team of three to four highly motivated, well-trained students working full-time for a month. The majority of projects involve the use of one or more advanced technical skills, including financial econometrics, simulation, derivatives valuation, optimization, and related software and programming languages. We also seek a small number of less technical projects.

Interested in becoming a host?

If you are interested in hosting a project for Fin-Lab, please email Professor Gita Rao.

Host responsibilities

Hosts must have a relevant project with practical significance, and must be willing to write a short description of the project. The host will partner with the students and faculty to identify the final project deliverable: a paper, presentation, software code, model, or any combination of these outputs. During the full-time segment of the project, hosts should be able to allocate at least one to two hours a week to provide ongoing feedback, and guidance. However, some hosts may provide more time, so availability will vary by host. They may opt to host students in their offices during all or part of the month of January. While such hosts are encouraged to reimburse student travel expenses, this is not required. Additionally, some hosts elect to have their teams conduct the final presentations in-person, which may also entail travel expenses.

Software and data

Students have access to Bloomberg, Capital IQ, Compustat, CRSP, FactSet, MATLAB, Mathematica, Barra, Northfield, Windham Portfolio Advisor, and a variety of other software tools and data sources. In some cases, the host will provide data or software.

Read more about Fin-Lab

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