ECON 4340

Great professor with interesting lectures. Emphasizes what the tests are on in class, so attendance is important. Graders are horrible.

Very interesting course. Really no work other than midterms and finals, but midterms and finals can be tricky. Highly recommend for anyone interested in finance.

Easy class. Do the readings, class isn't necessary to attend unless you like hearing about current events in the world of finance

Awful course.
Burton's textbook, "Financial Market Theory", is the biggest joke of a text I have ever encountered. Seemingly written by an 8th grader and littered with typos, the book makes me want to commit suicide while reading. His lectures are painfully boring, and his soft, arrogant voice does little to keep your attention. I stopped attending because it was so bad. Avoid Burton in general - I don't know why he's so popular because he is pretty stupid.

Learn lots about current events and financial theory. Lots of interesting stories from Burton who is knowledgeable yet fairly arrogant about his past. Exams aren't too bad

Not a great class. Lectures and pointless, irrelevant, and boring. Class uses professor's own written text, which is laden with typos and contradictions. Midterms are primarily made up of trick questions with double negatives intended to confuse the student. Just another bad economics course to avoid-although it seems impossible to find those worth taking.

Burton is an old man that likes to hear himself talk. He's very accomplished, but his arrogance really outweighs his accomplishments. But his classes are probably the easiest ECON electives so take them and suffer through his boring lectures. Two midterms and a final. Go to lecture and get summaries for the readings and you'll be fine.

The TAs should learn how to grade exams.

"The high yield market is a market of relatively high yields." - This is a quote straight from Burton's "textbook" he wrote himself and it pretty much exemplifies his text - useless and confusing.
If you don't have a finance background its pretty difficult to understand the concepts he teaches; but given that, if you have gone through 3rd year comm school this class is a piece of cake.

Burton's textbook is supposedly in the process of being revised, but it was hands down the biggest joke I've ever read; full of typos and frequent mistakes in examples that made it hard to follow sometimes. Usually only read it when I missed lectures. Hard class to motivate yourself to get up for and trudge to at 9:30 twice a week, but the exams aren't that bad, especially the midterms. No idea what I got on the final since Burton hasn't sent out exam scores or a scale, but I got an A in the class with pretty minimal effort. I agree with other comments, Burton generally seems to know what he's talking about, but he seems arrogant about his past and can bore you to death with his long-winded stories. Shouldn't be a hard class if you have any prior knowledge of finance.