Financial Markets and Instruments

This financial markets course explains the instruments a quant or trader will model and the machinery that moves them. It covers equities, bonds, futures, options, swaps, currencies and funds, and the exchanges, dealers and clearing houses that stand between a buyer and a seller.

What will I know at the end?

You will know how each instrument pays, how it is quoted and where it trades. You will be able to look at a futures contract specification and say what one point is worth, read an options chain, convert a bond price into a yield, and explain why a trade agreed today settles a day or two later. These are the facts every later course assumes without saying so.

How is the course taught?

Each unit has an audio lesson on the general subject, explainer films for the parts that are easier seen than heard, and a workbook with worked examples, cheat sheets and exercises. The written case at the end is marked by the faculty, with written feedback.

Who is this course for?

People new to finance who want to become quants, traders or risk analysts, and engineers who already code but have never looked inside a market.

What you will be able to do

• Describe the cash flows, risks and quoting conventions of equities, bonds, futures, options, swaps, FX and funds.
• Explain the roles of exchanges, brokers, dealers, market makers, clearing houses and custodians.
• Follow a trade from order to settlement and name the costs and risks at each step.
• Read a term sheet, a futures contract specification and an options chain correctly.

Syllabus, module by module

1. Why markets exist

   Raising capital, sharing risk and finding prices; primary and secondary markets.

2. Equities and funds

   Shares, indices, corporate actions, ETFs and mutual funds, and how their prices are quoted.

3. Bonds and money markets

   Coupons, yields, day counts, repo and the government, corporate and money-market curves.

4. Futures, forwards and swaps

   Contract specifications, margin, rolling, basis, and the plain interest rate swap.

What every course contains

Every paid course comes with the first seven and the certificate, whichever level it sits at. The proctored exam and the credential come when the course is taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship. Everything is self-paced: the material is yours to study in any order, at any hour, for the whole of the license.

1. Workbooks. Written to train the thinking patterns and the important concepts of the course, with worked problems and the reasoning behind each answer, so that you learn to think the way the subject is thought.
2. Audio edition. Focused, well-presented recordings with explainers and examples of the material, made to be interesting, relevant and entertaining, so that the general subject can be learned away from the desk.
3. Notes. Pre-produced notes with every fact the course relies on, written out in full, so that nothing has to be transcribed from the films or the audio.
4. Cheat sheet. One sheet with every important learning concept of the course on it, to keep beside you during the work and to revise from before the exam.
5. Named sources. Every fact in the notes names its source, the paper, the book or the dataset, for anyone who wants to dig in further.
6. Explainer films. Focused films, in the style of the sample films on the catalog page, that walk through the most difficult concepts of the course with visual explanations of a high standard.
7. Transcript. A full transcript of every film and every audio recording, searchable and quotable.
8. Proctored exam. Taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship, the course ends in a proctored multiple-choice questionnaire, with a pass mark of 60% and three retakes included. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam.
9. Verifiable certificate. A certificate of completion that a third party can verify: an employer sends the code on it to the credentials office and receives written confirmation of the course, the date and the result.
10. Credential of the program. The Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship of the program, track or path the course belongs to, awarded when every course in it is passed. Which one depends on the program you choose.

How the certificate is earned

Quizzes at the end of each unit and a graded written case in which you trace one trade in each asset class through its venue, clearing and settlement. On a pass you receive the Course certificate in Financial Markets and Instruments, issued by the Institute with a verification code. A course taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship ends in a proctored online exam with a pass mark of 60%. The fee includes three retakes; each attempt after that carries a reduced proctored exam fee. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam. Read how certification works.