“Smart beta” strategies are a class of investment strategies based on company fundamentals. In the FTS "Smart Beta Investing "project, students: Learn what these strategies are Constru...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2014/03/smart-beta-investing.html
Analytical skills are critical in today’s world, specially in areas like finance and accounting. Trading simulations can be very effective in building these skills for a large base of studen...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2013/05/building-practical-and-analytical-skills.html
Please visit our new website, which contains information on all of the FTS products WWW.OSFTS.COM
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2013/03/new-website-wwwosftscom.html
The FTS Heat Maps are a powerful way to visualize the performance of stocks based on different criteria and over different time periods. They are accessed through the Heat Maps tab and are curre...
As you know, FTS runs a variety of real time cases based around our teaching guide. You may not know that if you have a data feed, you can run your own trading simulations using our real time ...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2013/01/creating-real-time-simulations-with.html
I just returned from a conference where there was a panel discussion on university trading rooms. One point of discussion concerned online and distance education: how can students who are not on...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2012/11/online-courses-virtual-trading-rooms.html
We are excited to announce our new module: the FTS Financial Statement Analysis Module . It is a unique hands-on and interactive way to teach/learn ratio analysis. In this post, I’l...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2012/08/announcing-financial-statement-analysis.html
I am struck by how different instructors use various parts of our system to teach essentially the same thing. In fact, when someone asks how to teach something using our system, the answer mos...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2012/04/different-strokes.html
Experimental research is a big part of our history. In fact, the first version of the FTS Interactive Markets was developed in 1989 and 1990 for conducting experiments on information aggregati...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2012/02/experimental-research-with-fts.html
An exciting new capability is the integration of the Real Time System with Valuation Tutor (VT in what follows). What it lets you do is conduct a fundamental analysis of your portfolio and als...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2012/01/portfolio-fundamentals.html
We have had some exciting developments with Valuation Tutor. First, we have added a lot of visualization and comparison capabilities. You can read about these on the Valuation Tutor blo...
As we near the end of the semester, I thought I would describe some of the capability available to instructors for evaluating student activity and performance in our real time system. As I hav...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/10/report-to-instructor.html
The world of financial statement analysis has undergone a dramatic change with the SEC’s Interactive Data requirement. Effective June 2011, essentially all publicly traded companies “will...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/09/ease-of-access-sec-xbrl-filings.html
There are several different methods by which orders are submitted, displayed, and matched on real world exchanges. There are usually three phases in a trading day: the time period before the m...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/09/market-microstructure.html
It has been a busy summer so far. We have been working on taking Valuation Tutor (www.valuationtutor.com ) to the next level. We have now made it very easy to directly access all company fili...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/07/fundamental-value.html
Recent news stories about insider trading and the conviction of a hedge fund manager reminded me of a simulation we used to run that is just as relevant today. This simulation is different fro...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/05/insider-trading-rings.html
As the semester draws to a close at US universities, we receive many inquiries that require “interactive” meetings where we can either see someone else’s computer screen or where we can sho...
No doubt about it, one area where a real-time simulation adds tremendous value is in the teaching of options. Perhaps more than any other application of textbook finance, you really need anal...
Short sales can be confusing for students in several ways. First, they are unintuitive, perhaps because most of their experience in life consists of buying things or selling something they alr...
As we near the end of the semester, I thought I would describe some of the capability available to instructors for evaluating student activity and performance in our real time system. As I have...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/05/report-to-instructor.html
Can you “teach ethics?” I don’t know. But I do know that we can teach about the economic and social consequences of unethical behavior and challenge students to think through how they t...
One requirement that comes up frequently is the use of our real time system in executive education or other short-duration courses. The problem is that the participants will only be there for ...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/04/executive-session.html
Did you know that the NYSE conducts a pre-opening auction at 4 am? And that on the four largest US exchanges (the third and fourth are BATS and DirectEdge) the trading day is basically 8 am to ...
Interactive tools can make really dry material, like portfolio theory, come alive. When I first started teaching, without such tools, I used to dread this part of the course. Now its fun, and he...
http://ftsmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/04/baskets-of-eggs-risk-return-and.html
A quote attributed to Yogi Berra (and others) says: "IN THEORY THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE. IN PRACTICE THERE IS." The primary goal of interactive learning tools, like ...