Algorithmic trading and computational finance, taught the way it is practiced
The Institute teaches cohort-based courses and credential programs in quantitative trading, market microstructure, portfolio construction and risk. The curriculum is set by the founding faculty, who have taught these subjects at university level and have built trading and risk systems in industry. Every paid course ends in a certificate, and every course in a credential program ends in a proctored exam.
A course catalog built as a ladder
52 courses, from free primers of four to six hours to researcher courses of fourteen. Each one states its hours, its prerequisites and exactly what you will be able to do when you finish.
Certificates that require work
In a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship, every course ends in a proctored exam with a pass mark of 60%, and three retakes are included. Coursework at every level comes back with written feedback from the faculty. A pass earns a certificate with a verification code an employer can check with the Institute.
Credential programs for the whole specialty
Fifteen programs. Each certificate joins four to seven courses with an assessed capstone; the two Diplomas join three or four certificates, and the Fellowship ends in a dissertation.
Five levels, one direction of travel
Start where your mathematics and code already are. Each level assumes the one below it, and every course page says which courses come first.
- Open Free primers. Read, watch and work the exercises before you spend anything.
- Foundation The mathematics, statistics, data and market knowledge every later course assumes.
- Practitioner Lab-based courses. You build, test and cost real strategies and systems on market data.
- Researcher Proof-level courses. Stochastic models, estimation theory and the literature behind each method.
- Credential program Multi-course programs, most ending in an assessed capstone, that lead to a named Institute credential.
Three sample explainer films
Each course comes in three formats. An explainer film for each advanced idea, drawn and narrated so that the idea can be followed on a first viewing. An audio edition of the general subject, for study away from the desk. And a workbook with notes, worked exercises and a cheat sheet for every unit. The three films below are samples from the courses they link to.
Credential programs
- Foundation Certificate in Computational FinanceThe entry quantitative finance certificate, and the opening stage of both the Professional Diploma and the Fellowship. Six courses that settle the mathematics, statistics, data and market knowledge every later course assumes, closed by a capstone.
- Certificate in Algorithmic TradingSeven courses and a capstone that take a strategy from idea to a costed, sized and validated system, traded on paper and reported the way a trading desk would read it.
- Certificate in High-Frequency Trading and Market MicrostructureFour courses and a capstone on how orders meet: the limit order book, execution algorithms and their costs, venue routing, market making and the C++ systems that run them.
- Certificate in Statistical ArbitrageSeven courses and a capstone on market-neutral trading: time series foundations, pairs and baskets, cointegration, regimes, costs and the validation that keeps spread strategies honest.
- Certificate in Systematic InvestingSeven courses and a capstone on rule-based investing over months and years: asset pricing, trend, factors, carry, allocation and the portfolio construction and risk control that hold them together.
- Certificate in Quantitative Portfolio ManagementSeven courses and a capstone on building portfolios with numbers: mean-variance and its failures, robust optimization, Black-Litterman views, factors, asset allocation, bonds, attribution and risk.
- Certificate in Quantitative Risk ManagementA financial risk management certification in six courses and a capstone on measuring and governing market and credit risk: VaR and expected shortfall, volatility models, stress tests, credit and counterparty risk, bank capital and the validation of the models themselves.
- Certificate in Derivatives PricingDerivative pricing in seven courses and a capstone, from stochastic calculus to stochastic volatility and interest rate models: how options are priced, hedged, traded and calibrated to the market.
- Certificate in Machine Learning for TradingFive courses and a capstone on applying machine learning to markets without fooling yourself: labeling, features, purged validation, deep and language models, regimes and reinforcement learning.
- Professional Diploma in Algorithmic TradingThe top credential on the practitioner path. Twenty-one courses and an 80-hour capstone covering everything between the mathematics and a book you could defend to a risk committee.
- Fellowship in Computational FinanceThe top credential on the researcher path. Twenty-one courses and a dissertation supervised in writing and examined by two faculty members.
- Foundation Certificate in TradingThe first stage of the trader path: a trading course for beginners in five courses, from how markets and orders work to costs, charts, risk, edge, psychology and the trading journal, with a simulated-account capstone. No previous knowledge and no programming.
- Intermediate Certificate in TradingThe second stage of the trader path: a day trading course and swing trading course in one, covering technical analysis, price action, intraday execution, news, options, evidence-based testing and the written trading plan, with a tested-plan capstone. No programming.
- Advanced Certificate in TradingThe third stage of the trader path, for a certified trader at advanced level: order flow, futures, momentum and breakouts, global macro, fundamental analysis, how desk traders think, prop trading firms and overtrading, with a desk-style simulated book as the capstone. No programming.
- Diploma in Professional TradingThe top credential on the trader path and the Institute's trading certification for people who do not write code. Eleven courses and a 40-hour capstone, from a first lesson on how markets work to a six-month simulated trading business reviewed like a desk.
Start free
- AI Trading: What Works and What Does Not A sober introduction to artificial intelligence in trading: where machine learning is used by professional firms, why most AI trading claims fail on inspection, the specific traps of financial data, and how to judge a strategy or product that says it uses AI.
- Algorithmic Trading: An Open Introduction What is algo trading? A plain account of what an algorithm decides, the main families of strategy, the costs that eat returns, and what it takes to test an idea honestly.
- High-Frequency Trading Explained What is high-frequency trading? A plain account of what HFT firms do, how market making and arbitrage earn small amounts many times a day, why speed matters, and what the evidence says about its effect on markets.
- How to Start Trading: An Open Introduction How to start trading without the usual expensive first year: what an account and a broker are, how much capital you need, what each trade costs, how to limit a loss, and how to write a first plan before the first order.
- Introduction to Quantitative Finance What is quantitative finance? A free primer on what the field is, what quants actually do in banks, funds and trading firms, and what you need to learn to join them.
- Is Day Trading Gambling? An Open Course Is day trading gambling? Sometimes it is. This course shows the difference in numbers: whether the expected result of a trade is positive after costs, whether you can show it on a record, and whether you can stop.
- Monte Carlo Simulation, From First Principles What is a Monte Carlo simulation? A free course that builds one from first principles: random numbers, the law of large numbers, simulated price paths and their error bars.
- What Is Drawdown in Trading? An Open Course What is drawdown in trading, and why does it end more trading careers than any single loss? Peak-to-trough losses, the arithmetic of recovery, losing streaks, and how size decides the drawdown you will live through.
Why most trading education fails, and what is done differently here
These are the complaints practitioners make most often about trading courses. The catalog is organized around answering them.
| The common failure | What the Institute does about it |
|---|---|
| Backtests that look excellent and fail in live trading. | Every practitioner lab course ends in an out-of-sample assessed project, and backtest validation has a course of its own. |
| Strategies taught without slippage, spreads or market impact. | Execution and microstructure are a full track, and transaction costs are charged in every strategy lab. |
| One expensive, dated program sold as the only route in. | Credentials are built course by course. You pay for the courses you take and can stop at any certificate. |
| No one to check the work. | Coursework is assessed by the faculty and returned with written feedback, and every Certificate, Diploma and Fellowship rests on proctored exams. The researcher path ends in a written dissertation. |
13 specialist tracks
Each track is one specialty of the trade. Its page lists the courses in order of level and the credential programs they count toward.
Quantitative Foundations
The mathematical finance every later course assumes: probability, statistics, linear algebra, time series and stochastic calculus, taught with market data rather than textbook urns.
9 courses publishedProgramming for Quantitative Finance
Python for trading research and backtesting, C++ for systems where microseconds matter. Code you can run, review and put into production.
3 courses publishedAlgorithmic Trading
Strategy design, backtesting, position sizing and performance measurement, from the first rule-based system to a costed, validated strategy.
4 courses publishedHigh-Frequency Trading and Market Microstructure
High-frequency trading (HFT) courses on how orders meet: limit order books, execution algorithms, smart order routing and the economics of trading at microsecond scale.
3 courses publishedStatistical Arbitrage and Medium-Frequency Trading
Mean reversion trading over hours to weeks: pairs, baskets, cointegration and the risk of spreads that stop converging.
1 course publishedSystematic Investing
Systematic trading over months and years: factors, trend following and the evidence behind them.
2 courses publishedPortfolio Management
From mean-variance theory to optimizers that survive estimation error: how quantitative portfolios are constructed and rebalanced.
2 courses publishedFinancial Risk Management
Financial risk management in practice: measuring, testing and governing market risk with VaR, expected shortfall, stress tests and the controls around the models themselves.
3 courses publishedDerivatives and Rates
Option pricing from Black-Scholes to stochastic volatility, with the hedging and calibration that make the models useful.
4 courses publishedMachine Learning for Finance
Machine learning in finance, applied with the controls that markets demand: purged validation, leakage checks and honest costs.
4 courses publishedFixed Income and Credit
Fixed income and credit for quants: how bonds, mortgage pools and credit derivatives are priced, how rate and credit risk are measured and hedged, and the models banks use to value both.
3 courses publishedDiscretionary Trading
Trading courses for people who place their own trades: how markets and orders work, how to read a chart and test what it says, what each trade costs, and how professionals run day, swing, futures, options and macro books. No programming at any point.
8 courses publishedTrader Judgment
Trading discipline as something you can learn and measure: how to size a position, how to tell an edge from luck, how to stop trading like a gambler, and how to write and keep a plan.
6 courses published
How a certificate is earned
Certificates are earned, not attended. The rules are the same for every paid course.
Enroll and confirm
Add courses to your enrollment list and confirm by email. You receive an invoice, and your seat is held in the next cohort.
Study when the cohort opens
The cohort opens when its seats fill. Then it is self-paced: explainer films, an audio edition, workbooks, notes, a cheat sheet, named sources and a transcript, under a 12-month license.
Pass the assessment
Practitioner coursework is a project on market data; researcher coursework is a paper-style assignment. In a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship, each course also ends in a proctored online exam with a pass mark of 60% and three retakes included.
Receive the certificate
A pass earns a named certificate with a verification code. Coursework comes back with written feedback.
The founding faculty
The Institute was originally founded by three Carnegie Mellon University faculty members who were enthusiastic about algorithmic trading. At Carnegie Mellon they worked to change how the subject is taught: methods taken from the research behind them, tested on real market data, and judged by whether they still hold up out of sample.
The Institute carries that work forward. It is the same way of teaching, built out into a full catalog of courses and credentials, and open to students anywhere in the world, not only to those admitted to one campus.
Prof. Ben Racz
Professor of the Practice
Taught Advanced Quantitative Finance and Algorithmic Trading at Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering as Professor of the Practice. Founder of Algorithmic Sciences.
Choose a first course
Free Open courses need nothing but an email address. Paid courses are invoiced after you confirm, and each course opens when its cohort fills. Admissions answers questions about prerequisites and credential planning.
- Courses and admissions
- the academy office
- Certificates and verification
- the credentials office
- Research and teaching partnerships
- the partnerships office