Financial Investments

Description of Course Goals and Curriculum

This class was an introduction to financial investments for students with no prior knowledge of finance. The class focused on an overview of financial markets and instruments, the theory of optimal asset allocation, and the theory of asset pricing. This course aimed to provide students with no financial background an understanding of financial investments and how to think about the financial markets.

Learning From Classroom Instruction

The lectures were always a good introduction an overview of concepts. Professor Yogo also did a great job of explaining and walking through formulas and teaching the understanding behind a formula rather than just the formula itself. The precepts were a great source of a deeper dive into the theory and formulas. They were also very helpful for going over the homeworks and how to approach psets.

Learning For and From Assignments

The psets were super helpful for actually applying the theory and understanding how the concepts learned in class were used. It was also helpful to actually go through and understand how the different concepts interacted with each other. The assignments were all based in excel. The exam was more conceptual than the assignments because we couldn’t use excel on the exam, however the exam tested an understanding of the concepts and how they work in the real world. This course really emphasized understanding how the different concepts worked together and interacted with each other.

External Resources

Investopedia was actually very helpful for understanding financial terms and what was meant by the questions on the psets.

What Students Should Know About This Course For Purposes Of Course Selection

This course is all done in Excel but its not hard to pick up. There isn’t really any prior knowledge that is needed for this course and Professor Yogo did a great job of explaining everything to a student who didn’t have prior knowledge. This was a great course for understanding the fundamentals of financial investments and the financial markets.