What do I Write My Honors Thesis on?
I am having a difficult time trying to think of a specific topic for an honors thesis. I am a finance major and will be working as an M&A analyst next year. I want something that will help me gain a little bit of practical knowledge for my job next year or just something that would not be terribly boring to write about.
Any there any interesting areas you can think of for me to research in M&A or finance in general.
Thanks
If you can find a correllation between M&A activity and the alignment of the planets in the outer solar system, there may be a job at RenTec for you.
You could write something about Sarbanes-Oxley and how it changed the finance and legal professions, if you're interested in the law. Or something about the subprime crisis.
"We are lawyers! We sue people! Occasionally, we get aggressive and garnish wages, but WE DO NOT ABDUCT!" -Boston Legal-
Ya I have looked at both of those areas. Right now I think that I might do something on the history of LBO's and what the past trends could tell us about the future of the market. It always seems like some random outside source, such as the subprime market leading to investors reevaluating risk and spreads, is what really changes the LBO market so it might be too hard to predict.
Sorry if that does not make sense I just took my sleep aid.
Do you know anyone on the team that you will be working with? Why don't you ask one of the analysts if he/she has any suggestions maybe on a topic that would be useful to them.
I don't know about your school but most kids, where I came from, had to have their research idea approved by the end of the spring semester junior year. You would then spend the fall semester senior year researching and the spring semester, until the first week of April, writing. Students would then spend the last 2 weeks of April defending. Therefore, what I am trying to get to is that you are either writing the shittiest thesis of all time or your school puts no clout behind them. If the former is the case then that sucks for you and if the latter is the case write about something simple like the WACC equation and get it done, your school obviously does not take it too seriously.
Why don't you compare and contrast the two stock market crashes. That could be kind of fun. I'm an art school grad though, so I don't know how serious it has to be in your school, but at ours....well....I ended up writing a screenplay...120 pages long.
********"Babies don't cost money, they MAKE money." - Jerri Blank********
I wrote a paper on junk bonds and the 1990's crash in high school....turns out my analysis was totally wrong. But that's okay. I wrote on why the 90's tech crash happened and if there is another such bubble coming. This was a year before the subprime mess. I read about the whole subprime thing and I pulled out my AP US History paper (paper on the 90's crash) and I was like, shit, I was totally wrong.
I'm talking about the tech bubble, not S&L.
"We are lawyers! We sue people! Occasionally, we get aggressive and garnish wages, but WE DO NOT ABDUCT!" -Boston Legal-
Base it on planetary alignment vs. M&A activity and throw in some flagrant debauchery along the way. Yes, this is what people who make millions of dollars a year by buying and selling stocks actually do with their money. A new movie based on the life of hedge fund billionaire [pick your favorite].
I like the bubble idea - you could even go back to the South Sea Bubble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Bubble) or something equally distant and compare then to now, predict where the next bubble might be, etc. Plus there are plenty of ridiculously overvalued markets to write about... tech in the late 90s, China now:
"Chinese companies, both big and small, have become major players in the stock market, and some are doing so with reckless abandon. While exact figures are hard to pin down, some analysts suspect that nearly a third of reported corporate earnings in China come from investments outside the companies' principal lines of business. In other words, earnings are being fueled by the earnings of other Chinese companies, via investment in shares of stock."
(http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2007/11/26/why-chinese-equities-mig…)
What is the next bubble and what current bubble will burst first? That might be an interesting topic.
Finance Honors Thesis (Originally Posted: 06/23/2015)
Hi all,
I have been a long term lurker on WSO for a number of years and found it to be an invaluable resource. I am currently a rising senior and in order to graduate with latin honors I need to write an honors thesis on a subject relevant to my major. I wanted to see if anyone on here had any suggestions for an interesting thesis on corporate finance. Your help is much appreciated.
What interests you about corporate finance? An Honours is a lot of work, and will be much more enjoyable if you pick a topic you already find interesting, rather than the users of WSO
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