Understanding the World of Financial Markets

Start the course with one of the oldest forms of investment: property. Weigh the pros and cons of buying a home, not just as a residence but as an asset that will grow in value. Consider such strategies as purchasing rental properties versus REITs, “flipping,” and tapping home equity. Assess the return on holding a house for a decade or more compared with a similar investment in stocks.

Evaluate two approaches to investing in the stock market: stock picking, which can verge on high-risk gambling as in the notorious GameStop “short squeeze” in 2021, and the safer strategy of buying and holding a diversified portfolio of index funds. Learn how the efficient market hypothesis sheds light on investor behavior by modeling the flow of information about individual companies.

Brand names, patents, secret formulas, logos—these and other entities are known as intangible assets, and they can add to a company’s value. This not only applies to prestige brands, but also to firms such as Walmart that are exceptionally well-run, which counts as an intangible asset. Keep this all-important concept in mind whenever you are gauging the strengths and weaknesses of a company.

The age-old strategy of holding bonds as a hedge against declining stock prices appeared to go haywire in the decade and a half following the 2008 Financial Crisis. What went wrong and why? Investigate the function of bonds and their link to fiscal policy. Look at alternatives to the traditional bond market that combine relatively low risk with returns that are greater than the rate of inflation.

CEO compensation can be shocking, but the millions paid to a top-notch chief executive can generate billions to the economy, not to mention a tidy return to stockholders. That’s why understanding a company’s CEO is as important as mastering its balance sheet. Study the starters and nonstarters among CEOs—and look at CEO types.

The futures market has a practical function of allowing a company to lock in a price for a vital commodity or asset to be used later, for example, natural gas. It also has a speculative side, enabling investors to hedge their portfolios against market downturns or to simply gamble on price fluctuations. Learn when it makes sense for an individual investor to venture into this risky market.

Warren Buffett said, “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” But how do you measure fear? Financial economists have come up with volatility indexes that measure the tendency of stocks to vary in price over time. The VIX index is based on the S&P 500 and captures the “fear factor” in the market. Discover how to use VIX to help manage your investments.

Options give the holder the right to buy or sell a particular asset at a fixed price on or before a certain date. Unlike futures contracts (discussed in Lecture 6), options don’t commit the holder to actually buy or sell anything. What could go wrong? Lots, as you learn in this lecture, which contrasts well-planned options trading with a “throw-of-the-dice” approach that often leads to disaster.

Companies typically start out private and go through a period of growth before potentially going public through an initial public offering (IPO)—though not all firms take this path. Many companies remain private or are taken private through buyouts. This process is central to the private equity market, a thriving sector of the economy that largely excludes individual private investors.

We would all like companies to act responsibly, but how effective are ESG (environmental, social, and governance) financial instruments, which are designed to reward good behavior and punish bad? Delve into this relatively new array of securities that often have conflicting standards and goals. Compare ESG mutual funds with ESG bonds. The latter may be better targeted for doing good.

Venture into the brave, new world of virtual assets: cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the distributed ledger databases that make them possible—the best-known being blockchain technology. Learn how they work and weigh the advantages and risks of these revolutionary financial instruments. Consider whether the time is right for you to jump into the market.

“There’s no free lunch,” which for the stock market means that everyone on Wall Street must get paid one way or another, especially in the era of brokerless trades and other freebies. Analyze the hidden fees in today’s computerized market. A notable source is high-frequency trading, which skims a fraction of a cent from each share traded, affecting even passive investors.