Spring 2027

Derivative Securities

Covers pricing and uses of common derivatives such as options, forwards, futures, and swaps, with outcomes in no-arbitrage derivation, trading strategies, and risk hedging.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Adam Smedema4.1/5Kenneth Kavajecz4.0/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Briana Chang

One student felt concepts were intuitive and did not require formula memorization, noting that exams contained no curveballs.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explain the differences between various derivative contracts including forwards, futures, options, swaps and credit derivatives.

  • Derive the no-arbitrage forward/futures prices.

  • Demonstrate the technical skills of applying various option pricing methods.

  • Implement various derivative trading strategies to generate profit.

  • Use derivatives to hedge financial and business risks.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

FINANCE/​ECON 300, (MATH 213 or 222), and (GEN BUS 307, 317, 656,ACT SCI 654, 655,ECON 400, 410,STAT/​MATH 310,STAT 312, 333 or concurrent enrollment), or declared in undergraduate Business Exchange program

FINANCE 330

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Adam Smedema

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.82/5 from 11 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.49 GPA, 68.5% A/AB (n=92 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.53 GPA, 79.2% A/AB (n=120 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.50 GPA, 75.8% A/AB (n=120 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Kenneth Kavajecz

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.38/5 from 21 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.33 GPA, 55.6% A/AB (n=36 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.24 GPA, 50.0% A/AB (n=120 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

ADAM SMEDEMA is recorded teaching in Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

BRIANA CHANG is recorded teaching in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

KENNETH KAVAJECZ is recorded teaching in Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 640
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 600
LEC 003Classroom Instruction0 / 600

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Briana Chang

Past students described the lectures as straightforward and found in-class problem practice helpful for understanding the material.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.27 GPA, 59.4% A/AB (n=187 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.21 GPA, 62.0% A/AB (n=292 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.37 GPA, 62.9% A/AB (n=240 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Briana Chang

One student felt concepts were intuitive and did not require formula memorization, noting that exams contained no curveballs.

Past student reviews · Briana Chang

A past student praised the instructor and highlighted that practice sessions during class were great and helpful.

Topics

  • Options, forward contracts, futures contracts, and swaps
  • Differences between derivative contracts including credit derivatives

Skills

  • Applying various option pricing methods
  • Implementing derivative trading strategies to generate profit
  • Using derivatives to hedge financial and business risks

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.12 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
FINANCE 330 · Spring 2027

Derivative Securities

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:233:022619",
    "course_id": "FINANCE 330",
    "course_uid": "course_d521fad56be74c680dda616a",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "022619",
    "source_subject_id": "233",
    "title": "Derivative Securities",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "5f21102dcdcb97e3920bec80d6656cf602ed5acd73f520b72ef7e10b61ff39b0",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}