Course description: All financial institutions and money managers are required by new regulations, Basel II and the SEC, to provide risk information to help them better manage their organizations and to report to their investors. Returns are not sufficient, without knowing the risks being taken. This class will review the regulatory environment, explore VaR, the standard quantitative measures of risk, calculation methodologies and its interpretation. Cases such as Long Term Capital and Barings, etc will be used to identify lessons learned. Risks covered include market, credit,liquidity and operational and the issues in building and implementing risk systems. The use of an industry standard risk system in Baruch's Wasserman Trading Floor / Subotnick Center will be a highlight of the course.

Prerequisites: Comfort with using MS Excel, basic statistics and standard algebra.

Bernard S. Donefer is recently retired SVP and head of Capital Markets Systems at Fidelity Investments in Boston. He spent 30+ years in international capital markets trading and risk technology management. He was responsible for institutional equity, fixed income and forex trading, NASDAQ market making, program trading and risk management systems. Prior to Fidelity he was EVP and CIO of one of the world's largest international banks responsible for US based systems, President and CEO of two multi-million dollar international trading software businesses and consultant to the New York and Milan Stock Exchanges. Donefer also holds faculty appointments at NYU Stern and Fordham Graduate Schools of Business.