Our comprehensive Fundamentals of Financial Markets course teaches you to navigate the financial ecosystem confidently. Understand financial instruments, regulations, and market behavior through engaging lessons and real-world case studies. Empower yourself with the knowledge and skills to succeed in today's complex economic landscape.
Being a financial analyst is not easy. You have a lot on your plate, always gathering and processing information, making important investment decisions, trading securities, hedging various risks, and investing capital. To help you complete these tasks successfully, you need to understand the characteristics of the markets in which they are executed. Our Fundamentals of Financial Markets course provides a structural overview of financial markets and their operating characteristics. It touches on several topics, starting from asset classification and the financial system’s primary functions. You will learn the difference between financial instruments such as currencies, securities, commodities, and real assets, which is a must-know for all successful financial analysts. Moreover, we provide an overview of financial intermediaries (entities that facilitate the functioning of the financial system) and compare the trading positions an investor can take in an asset. You will learn about the benefits and risks of short and long positions and how traders finance them. We also explore the different trade orders, how markets process them, and the primary and secondary markets. And finally, we discuss the characteristics of a well-functioning financial system. Next, this Fundamentals of Financial Markets course examines security market indexes and their returns. Securities prices alone reveal little about a market’s investment horizon. Yet, investors’ success largely depends on comparisons between periods, companies, shares, ratios, industries, and so on. Over 100 years ago, Charles Dow and Edward Jones set up the very first security market index. Today, hundreds of indicators help investors and analysts gauge the financial health of a firm or the overall market performance. Gradually, indexes became an inseparable part of the financial ecosystem. So, to improve your analytical skills, we delve into the choices and issues in index construction and management and the main uses of security market indexes. We also define the three forms of market efficiency and discuss the implications for technical and fundamental analysis. Lastly, we explore several market anomalies and describe how they relate to investment strategies. By the end of this course, you will understand what drives the famous saying, “You can’t beat the market.” We highly recommend enrolling for this Fundamentals of Financial Markets course if you want to pursue a career in investment banking or investment analysis. Sign up now and start learning.
Aiming to upgrade your financial analyst skills? This Fundamentals of Financial Markets course will help you:
We start learning about financial markets from the building blocks: their organization and structure. We examine the functions of that financial system and the various asset classes that come with it. After covering the basics, we dive deeper into the tools that turn the financial system into a well-oiled machine. Thereupon, we analyze the roles and functions of the so-called financial intermediaries. You will learn what justifies the different trading positions investors take and recognize various approaches to trade execution. The section ends with a look at the bigger picture. We describe the primary and secondary markets and summarize the main characteristics of a well-functioning financial system.
In this section of the Fundamentals of Financial Markets course, we discuss the meaning of security market index and the difference between index price and total return. We examine the choices and issues in index construction and management and compare different weighting methods and how they affect index return. Towards the end of the section, we describe the different types of equity, alternative investments, and fixed income indexes.
In the last section of the Fundamentals of Financial Markets course, study investments from a theoretical perspective with the concept of market efficiency as the central point of discussion. Of course, we also touch on several types of equity securities. To help you grasp the practicalities, we highlight the difference between intrinsic and market value. Inevitably, the factors that affect a market’s efficiency will be observed, too. Such an in-depth understanding will give you a bird’s-eye view of the market. You will learn how to differentiate between market types and what their implications for fundamental and technical analysis are. And finally, we discuss how behavioral finance can help us learn about financial markets and understand market anomalies.
Student feedback
“Understanding how financial markets function is the stepping stone to becoming a better financial analyst.”
Ivan Kitov
COO at 365 Data Science
Fundamentals of Financial Markets
with Ivan Kitov
