FBE 505 - Behavioral Finance

The class is more theoretical & academic - not as practical as I hoped it was going to be. We will mention something like 'hedge funds take advantage of this,' but I wish we were able to have more quantitative practice with how to analyze stock prices and other metrics and/or hedge/short/etc. against biases. Very nice professor, but often over-complicates things when explaining intuitive ideas. Who is this class for? Not necessarily for finance people, people interested in more academic/economic theory Final Thoughts:

I enjoy this class as the course material is enticing to me, with a good balance of qualitative theories and quantitative practises. The assignments are interesting, with exposure to theorectical debates and trading strategies. The professor is very attentive to our questions, and very approachable despite his prestige and reputations in the field

This is an amazing class. If you are interested in behavioral fallacies and the quantification of those fallacies, this is fantastic. It cuts through the bulllshit that plagues economics classes, which is the assumption that everyone acts perfectly rationally. Light workload (only 3 psets and a final) and so far it's been extremely straightforward. Hopefully Cary can continue teaching this class.

Even though this class has a slow start (the first few weeks focus on CAPM and basic equity pricing models), once we get into the "behavioral" and "psychological" part of investing, the class is very engaging. Professor Hirshleifer is a reasonable grader and the curve is adequate.