To better equip the master students of professional degree programs with updated knowledge and skills of the real world, this semester the School of Economics invited some outstanding alumni to give lectures on practical skills and real-life operations in their daily work.

On Apr. 18^th, Mr. Chen Kai, consultant at Direct Access International Futures Co. Ltd., came to give a lecture on “Practical Bond Operations” sharing his own experiences in bond investment.

Mr. Chen started by briefly covering basic concepts related to bond trading, including coupon rate, duration, yield, loan-to-value ratio, buy-back and credit rating. After that, Mr. Chen gave a detailed explanation about the current development of bond buy-back in China , uses of instruments in bond markets, and misunderstandings in bond investment, such as overemphasizing YTM, ignoring liquidity, the macro-economic environment and bond valuations. In the last part, he concluded mistakes we should avoid in bond investment and shared his opinion on investment skills with the audience.

On the afternoon of Apr. 19^th, Dr. Liu Chuankui, Vice President of Ri Xin Securities and part-time supervisor for the school’s professional degree students, was invited to give a lecture on public funds for the students of finance. During the lecture, he mainly explained the operations of public funds on the financial market and offered some advice on career planning for the students.

Dr. Liu’s lecture covered the following parts: wealth management products and their latest deveopments, basic introduction to public funds, the future trend of public funds at home and abroad, the future prospects of public funds, examples of financial innovation in the funds market.

On the afternoon of Apr. 23, Dr. Yin Yushun, Managing Director of the Zhejiang and Shanghai Division of Shenzhen Capital Group and part-time supervisor for the school’s professional degree students visited the school and gave a lecture on the theory and practices of venture capital investment.

Dr. Yin started by explaining the difficulties start-ups encounter, which he thought were connected to further problems relating to funding, product updating, business integrity, etc. The gap in funding has provided venture capitalists with huge opportunities.

Dr. Yin further explained the reasons accounting for the birth of venture capital in China , the stages US venture capital has gone through, criteria VCs use when screening projects, exit of VCs, evaluation of managers, mitigation of asymmetric information between VCs and start-ups, prospects of the PE market in China . The students also showed great interest in the history and development of Shenzhen Capital Group and Dr. Yin’s own education and working experience.

On Apr. 26^th, Dr. Shen Jianguang, Managing Director and Chief Economist at Mizuho Securities, Asian Division, came to talk about the “Analysis on the Macro-economy of China: from the Perspective of an Investment Banker” as a part-time supervisor for professional degree students at the School of Economics.

In this lecture, Dr. Shen mainly expressed his own opinion and research findings about the current macro-economic conditions of China and its future trends. According to him, the conditions for economic recovery in China are still not sufficient and the long-term and mid-term economic growth of China is still facing a lot of challenges and uncertainty. Dr. Shen also had an in-depth discussion with the teachers and students present.