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Financial Modelling in Excel - UK & Europe and Middle-East Training Course

This training course teaches you how to build financial models that will improve the reliability and quality of your decision making.

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Course Overview

When considering financial opportunities, performing accurate and realistic analysis is imperative. In the modern constantly-changing business milieu, the ability to merely manipulate spreadsheets is important, yet insufficient.

Being able to incorporate all "what if" scenarios and stress any proposal to its limits confers, on the other hand, considerable advantages upon the practitioner.

Working financial models can facilitate and improve the reliability and quality of decision making.

Modelling techniques are used in many different areas, such as investment appraisal, capital planning, budgeting, valuation, financial analysis and forecasting, risk analysis, portfolio optimisation and so on.

Learning Objectives

The programme seeks to enable the you to

Designing a model
Structure of models
Identify the main sources of model risk
Explain the potential consequences of neglecting model risk
Model optimisation
Model sensitivity testing
Testing and auditing models - the function of independent risk oversight (IRO) units
Forecasting using models
Monte Carlo Simulations
Understand different types of financial models and when each should be applied
Construct models that are financially rigorous in Excel (often with VBA - ie using macros)
Assess the impact of model risk on various instruments in the banking book or trading book
Acknowledge the importance of model testing and identify processes to limit (if not entirely eliminate) model risk
Incorporate risk, sensitivity, optimisation and forecasting into models
Understand the role of Monte Carlo testing and be able to employ this powerful technique effectively

Have a question? Email us at:

or call us at: (+852) 2273-4393

Financial Modelling in Excel Course Agenda

DAY ONE - INTRODUCTION

Introduction and Overview

Overview of the course
Scope of Modeling and objectives of Modeling
Brief overview of some useful Excel features
Model risk, sources of model risk, methods for estimating model risk
Exercise - Model review (Chaos, space shuttle Challenger, Mars probe)

Model Construction

Model design and structure - key steps
Model objectives - flowcharts
Defining outputs, inputs and variables
Ways risk managers can protect against model risk and role of senior managers in managing model risk
Procedures for vetting and reviewing a model
Function of an independent risk oversight (IRO) unit
Case study/Exercise - Barings, LTCM, Amaranth
Case studies/Exercises - The cubic spline interpolation model

DAY TWO - RISK SCENARIOS AND SIMULATION FORECASTING MODELS

Forecasting Models

Review of forecasting methods
Forecasting - linear, non-linear and seasonal
Smoothing techniques
Simple and multiple regression
Example - Building a forecast model, the Geometric Brownian Motion model of stock and commodity prices

Risk Techniques

Understanding risk
Sensitivity table
Scenario analysis - dynamic what-if
Standard deviation, volatility and coefficient of variation
Case study/example - Volatility models including standard deviation and EWMA, efficient frontier models

Risk and Simulation

Building a simulation model
Monte Carlo simulations
Case study/Example - Monte Carlo simulation building in Excel

DAY THREE - OPTIMISATION

Optimisation

Optimisation using Excel's Goal seek and Solver
Linear programming
Case study/Example - construction of models using goal seek and
solver including some hedging examples, the GARCH volatility model, pricing swaps, pricing CDS.

Other Examples and Macros

Market risk and associated loss model (VaR)
Credit risk and associated loss models (Single Factor Model)
Case study/Example - constructing risk models and fitting distributions, Fourier curve fitting models, macro construction (recording only)

What do past delegates say?

"Great!" - P.M., Enterprise Investors, Poland

"Overall - the speaker is very good. The speaker is very open-minded, polite and understanding...I have learned so much." - A.J., Amadeus Qatar, Qatar

Who should attend?

CFO's
Accountants
Corporate Treasury Managers
Investment professionals
Corporate Finance professionals
Balance sheet and capital managers
Asset and liability managers and analysts
Risk managers and portfolio managers
Financial controllers, accountants and analysts
Investment bankers

***Each delegate should have a good working knowledge of laptop computers with Microsoft Excel installed and bring their own computer, or have one available per delegate at the training venue.

Have a question? Email us at:

or call us at: (+852) 2273-4393

Why Ethan Hathaway training courses?

Practical. Learn from experienced and active industry practitioners and what's being practiced by your peers.
Applicable. Apply what you learn in your job and your career
Specially designed courses by industry active experts for industry practitioners
Quality Control. Each expert instructor is interviewed and vetted through our senior management and our 5-point instructor criteria.
Valuable. Earn more revenue or save your organisation from monetary loss. You and your organisation will quickly earn back your investment on the course fee and more
Enjoyable. Speakers who have a passion for their topic
Clear. Turning complex concepts into easy to understand concepts
Limited seats - each session is limited to between 18-25 seats

What do you receive from an Ethan Hathaway training course?

You gain knowledge and skills that make you valuable to your company and your career
Instruction by industry experts
Course notes and reference package
Daily lunch, snacks and refreshments
Certificate of completion
Meeting your industry peers
Ask questions relevant to your job

Download the course brochure to learn more

Your course instructor

Gary Van Vuuren: Gary began obtained his PhD in nuclear physics while working at South Africa's Atomic Energy Corporation. He then joined ABSA's market risk management team in Johannesburg, and then Old Mutual Asset Managers' risk and quantitative finance group in Cape Town.
In 2002, he left for London, joined the market and credit risk model validation teams for Standard Bank and attained GARP's Financial Risk Manager accreditation.

In 2004, he headed up the Quantitative Analysis Group for Ernst & Young and obtained his PhD in credit risk before moving to Fitch as Senior Director in early 2006 in the Financial Institutions Special Projects Group. As quantitative analyst he holds responsibility for overseeing all quantitative aspects of projects which require mathematical or statistical input. He is also responsible for managing all implementation, testing and validation aspects of Basel II in
global financial institutions for Fitch.

Dates & Locations & Fees

Sorry, there are presently no public dates for this course, however, this course is available on an in-house basis.

Date	Location	Venue	Course Fee	Early Bird Fee	Register

Early Bird Savings Early Birds Save Up To 30% Off the Regular Fee, download the brochure to learn more

Limited seats - Email us: for availability.

* Venue, dates, course fees, promotions, course content, course instructor are all subject to change

Can't find a session in a city near you?

If there's no session scheduled in a city near you, you have the following options:

In-house training: If you have a group of 8 or more, consider having us run this course in-house for you
Co-sponsored training: Between 5-7 people, consider a co-sponsored course - you agree to send this set number of people to the course if we run it in a city near you and Ethan Hathaway sells the remaining seats to other companies
Distance learning: Less than 5 people, consider distance training format: live trainer presents over phone lines/web at pre-scheduled times (available only for select courses)
Just tell us where you want the course: Let us know which city you'd like us to run this course in - we'll plan it if there's enough demand

Email us at: for more information regarding the above options.

Register for the course

You may book your place on the course by any of these methods:

Online booking - simply click on the "Register Me" button next to the course date you wish to register and it will take you through our quick online registration procedure.
Email us at: - please include your full contact details.
Fax us the booking form (included in the brochure) to: +852 3014-0721
Or call: +852 2273-4393 during normal office hours

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Learn more about this course

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Detailed course agenda of what you'll learn
Eligible discounts
Our course quality guarantee
Course expert biography
Course venue details
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