Make smart investment decisions in a global world. Learn how a wealth-generating portfolio function actually works.
Suggested by: Coursera (What is Coursera?)
No prior knowledge required
No unnecessary risks
In this specialization, you will understand how investment strategies are designed to achieve financial goals in a global context. You will learn the theory behind strong investment decisions, as well as practical, real-world skills that you can apply when discussing investment proposals with your advisor, managing your own assets, or your client’s portfolio.
In the final project, you will create a reasonable five-year investment plan that considers the investor’s goals and constraints in a dynamic economic landscape.
Keynote speakers from UBS, our business partner, will contribute to this specialization by providing practical insights they have gathered through years of experience working for the world’s largest wealth manager.
Dr. Michel Girardin, Lecturer in Macrofinance, University of Geneva.
In this course, you will learn about the major financial markets and their characteristics, as well as how they are connected to the economy. Our diverse team will teach you how stock and bond prices are calculated and why they change, as you gain a greater understanding of the concept of risk and why it is important when measuring investment performance.
After that, the focus will shift to less popular markets such as:
Their analysis will be carried out, highlighting their specific risks and return opportunities, and how they can help build effective investment portfolios. Finally, you will be introduced to central bank policies and their impact on financial markets, along with the link between the economy and financial asset prices.
During these stages, experts from UBS, our business partner, will show you how the concepts you have acquired are actually applied at a leading global bank. The focus on practicality will ensure that you not only understand what is happening in global financial markets, but also begin to understand how you can use them to achieve financial goals, whether those of clients or your own.
Dr. Michel Girardin, Lecturer in Macrofinance, University of Geneva
In this course, you will delve deeper into the concepts of rationality and irrationality and understand how they affect our investment decisions and what the implications may be at the market level.
First, you will explore the various biases that are part of our lives when we face investment decisions and how they may affect the outcomes of those decisions. In addition, you will see how emotions and ethical concerns such as honesty and trust affect market participants.
When considered as a group rather than individually, you will discover how rationality and irrationality can drive asset prices in different directions from their fair value. Finally, you will be introduced to different portfolio construction methodologies and investment styles that shape the landscape of today’s portfolio management industry.
At key points throughout the course, you will benefit from the practical knowledge of experts from our business partner, UBS, on how to build and manage investment portfolios for clients.
In this course, you will understand the theory behind building an optimal portfolio, the different ways in which investment portfolios are actually constructed, and how to measure and manage the risk in those investment portfolios.
You will begin by learning how imperfect correlation between assets leads to the construction of diversified and optimal investment portfolios, as well as the implications for asset pricing. Then, you will learn how to shape the investor profile and build an appropriate portfolio by combining strategic and tactical asset allocations.
Finally, you will delve deeper into risk: its various aspects and appropriate tools and techniques to measure, manage, and hedge risk.
Keynote speakers from UBS, our business partner, will regularly provide a practical perspective on the various topics as you progress through the course.
In this course, you will learn about the famous dichotomy between active and passive investing, how to appropriately measure and analyze investment performance, and how future trends in the investment management industry are anticipated.
First, you will learn about absolute and relative performance, risk-adjusted returns, and how to break down investment performance. The focus will then shift to the two main categories of investment vehicles, active and passive funds, and what they mean in terms of expected performance.
Finally, you will explore the worlds of emerging finance, neurofinance, and fintech, three areas of research that will shape the future of the investment management industry.
You will also benefit from the insights of experts from UBS, our business partner, on the practical application of the various concepts we have developed in this course.
In this final project, you will need to choose between three different characters (each with a unique set of financial constraints and goals) and build a suitable wealth plan for them over the next five years.
You will need to use the knowledge you have acquired in each of the four previous courses to achieve this goal. Indeed, you will need to know which assets to consider and how to manage them according to changes in the economic situation (Course 1), how to assess and address your character’s emotional biases to offer them an implementable wealth strategy (Course 2), how to build an optimal portfolio and manage its risk once the strategy has been designed (Course 3), and how to properly measure the performance of your plan while taking advantage of investment tools and future trends in the investment management industry to advance your character’s goals (Course 4).
This final project was designed in collaboration with UBS, our business partner, who has many years of experience in helping clients plan their wealth.
