FINN2071
Intermediate Financial Economics
Undergraduate Programmes 2023/24
SUMMATIVE ASSIGNMENT
1. Please provide a brief explanation of the holiday effect. Additionally, download the returns of three random stocks from WRDS and the pricing factors from French’s data library. Investigate whether the holiday effects influenced the explanatory power of the 4-factor model from Jan-2000 to Dec 2020. Discuss your findings. (60 marks)
2. Investigate the impact of business cycles on your findings in question (1) using NBER recession dates. (40 marks)
Overall word limit: 3,000 words
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
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Your completed assignment must be uploaded to Ultra no later than 12:00 midday on 20th January 2025
The assignment should be submitting using one of the following file types: .doc, docx or .pdf
AVI, MP4, MPG, WMV, MOV, QT, ASF, 3GP, WMA, MP3 or M4V
A penalty will be applied for work uploaded after 12:00 midday as detailed in
the Student Information Hub. You must leave sufficient time to fully complete
the upload process before the deadline and check that you have received a
receipt. At peak periods, it can take up to 30 minutes for a receipt to be
generated.
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Assignments should be typed, using 1.5 spacing and an easy-to-read 12-point font. Assignments and dissertations/business projects must not exceed the word count indicated in the module handbook/assessment brief.
The word count should:
Include all the text, including title, preface, introduction, in-text citations, quotations, footnotes and any other items not specifically excluded below.
Exclude diagrams, tables (including tables/lists of contents and figures),equations, executive summary/abstract, acknowledgements, declaration, bibliography/list of references and appendices. However, it is not appropriate to use diagrams or tables merely as away of circumventing the word limit. If a student uses a table or figure as a means of presenting his/her own words, then this is included in the word count.
Examiners will stop reading once the word limit has been reached, and work beyond this point will not be assessed. Checks of word counts will be carried out on submitted work, including any assignments or dissertations/business projects that appear to be clearly over-length. Checks may take place manually and/or with the aid of the word count provided via an electronic submission. Where a student has intentionally misrepresented their word count, the School may treat this as an offence under Section IV of the General Regulations of the University. Extreme cases may be viewed as dishonest practice under Section IV, 5 (a) (x) of the General Regulations.
Very occasionally it may be appropriate to present, in an appendix, material which does not properly belong in the main body of the assessment but which some students wish to provide for the sake of completeness. Any appendices will not have a role in the assessment - examiners are under no obligation to read appendices and they do not form part of the word count. Material that students wish to be assessed should always be included in the main body of the text.
Guidance on referencing can be found on Durham University website and in the Student Information Hub.
MARKING GUIDELINES
Performance in the summative assessment for this module is judged against the following criteria:
• Relevance to question(s)
• Organisation, structure and presentation
• Depth of understanding
• Analysis and discussion
• Use of sources and referencing
• Overall conclusions