/financemasters

Curriculum for Finance

Created and maintained by @hendriyono, currently working for a financial services authority. London Business School Master in Finance alumni.

The Open-Source Curriculum for Learning Finance

This website contains an open-source curriculum for learning Finance. The curriculum will help you learn the building blocks needed to help you understand Finance well. We aim to provide foundational understanding in both theory and applications, and also break down some of current issues and trend in finance (especially in technical areas).

Contents

The Motivation

Knowledge of finance is highly regarded in the job market. Finance is one of few fields whose employee pays generous amount of money.

Finance is one of the highest-paying sectors in the US economy, and the industry draws many job seekers for precisely that reason. Financial managers, for example, are paid a median of $127,990 per year, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment for financial managers is projected to rise 19 percent between 2016 and 2026, which is faster than the average for other occupations….

-source: “Highest Paying Finance Jobs” - Glassdoor.com , published on 14 May 2019

Finance is critical to any economy. No wealthy nation is without a sophisticated finance industry and none of the world’s poorest countries have one. The benefits of an efficient industry are obvious; economic growth, social mobility, and better pensions and savings. The financial crisis of 2008 should be a lesson to all of us. If the finance industry fails to perform its purpose well, instability sets in.

- source: "The finance industry: what’s its purpose?" - David-Pitt Watson, published on 16 June 2015

Many ways of learning finance

The traditional way of learning finance is to study at a university. Unfortunately, finance is a vast subject and involves tons of elements which means that your time at university would not be enough to cover every essential thing you need to understand. Now, using the books available you can increase your skills by taking the advantage of books, material, and certification that will help you launch a successful career in finance.

You might also want to learn finance eventhough your background is engineering, public policy, etc.

Finance is Everywhere

It doesn’t matter if you work in tech or education, consulting or advertising. Your company needs cash flow to do things like pay everyone’s salary, distribute dividends, and reinvest in product innovation.Even if you don’t manage a budget yourself, finance is at the core of business decision-making. If you’re pitching a project or angling for additional funding, understanding and being able to communicate how you can turn that investment into revenue for your organization will help you make a more convincing argument.

- source: "5 Reasons Why You Should Study Finance" - Harvard Business School, published on 23 Apr 2019

Ready?

The Curriculum

Introductory Courses

Intro to Financial Markets / Yale (Taught by Prof. Robert J. Shiller / Nobel Prize Winner) Videos

  • Topics: basics of financial markets, insurance, and CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model), behavioral finance, basic macroeconomics, equity, recessions, bubbles, the mortgage crisis, and regulation, derivatives, innovations in financial markets, nonprofits and corporations, and (at last) your career in finance.

Intro to Corporate Finance / New York University (Taught by Prof. Aswath Damodaran / Guru of Valuation) Videos - Website

  • Topics: decision making, cost of equity, cost of debt, hurdle rates, investment returns, optimal financing, corporate actions, and (of course) introduction to valuation.

Intro to Accounting Accounting / AccountingWorkbook.com (Taught by Tony Bell) Financial Accounting Videos and Managerial Accounting Videos

  • Topics: Introductory Accounting and Bookkeeping. The course teaches you about financial accounting and management accounting including: accounting basics, accounting principles and equation, balance sheets, working capital and liquidity, income statement, cash flow, financial ratios, inventory method, and bonds.

Ethics in Business and Finance

(can you suggest some materials?)

Math

Finance requires understanding of math. Some introductory materials explained here can be easily grasped if you understand basic algebra. If you are not confident in your mathematical skills or you just want to have some math refresher, try Khan Academy Algebra 1 / Statistic-Probability. Of course, for more advanced materials you need to understand more than basic algebra (ie. credit risk, fixed income, and derivatives)

Below is the list of mathematical knowledge you have to understand to fully absorb most of the finance related materials listed on this website.

Calculus

  • Applied Calculus: For Business, Economics, and the Social and Life Sciences, 11th Expanded Edition - Laurence Hoffmann, (very good book!) Book $129

Statistics and Probability

  • Probability - The Science of Uncertainty and Data - MIT (cannot stress how good this course is! They once published the 2nd part, i don't know why they took it down), edX
  • Statistics in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference - Sarah Boslaugh, Book $29
  • Probability: For the Enthusiastic Beginner - David J. Morin, Book $20 (cheapest one out there, some other good introductory book cost you > $75)
  • Probability Theory: The Logic of Science - E. T. Jaynes (if you have enough background on probability), Book $92

Differential Equations

Regression

Finance Course

Environmental, Social, and Governance

Foundational & Theoretical

  • Influences on corporate governance - Open University, OpenLearn Course Videos
  • Improving Leadership & Governance in Nonprofit Organizations Specialization - Buffalo and SUNY, Videos on Cousera
  • The Theory of Corporate Finance - Jean Tirole (Chapter 1 - 11, this book is a definitive guide on corporate finance theory!), Book $78

Practical

  • Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit - Alex Edmans (one of the best professors in London Business School 👍), Book $23
  • Responsible Investing: An Introduction to Environmental, Social, and Governance Investments - Matthew W. Sherwood and Julia Pollard, Book $61
  • Intelligent Disobedience: The Difference between Good and Great Leaders - Bob McGannon (Fun read! This book shows that Governance does not always equals to obedience/following the rule), Book $44

Financial Analysis

  • Financial Statements: Economic Analysis and Interpretation - Chris Highson (you can imagine his voice by reading this book :laugh:) Book $70
  • Financial Statement Analysis: A Practitioner's Guide - Martin S. Fridson and Fernando Alvarez Book $63

Corporate Valuation

  • Corporate Valuation - Aswath Damodaran (New York University - MBA Class for free! 👍) Youtube / Website
  • Corporate Valuation Theory, Evidence and Practice (if you’re damn serious about learning company valuation! 🤘) - Holthausen and Zmijewski, Book $75
  • Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset - Aswath Damodaran, Book $68
  • Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies - McKinsey, Book $45

Merger and Acquisitions

  • Law of Mergers and Acquisitions - MIT, Videos on MITCourseWare
  • Mergers & Acquisitions - NYU Stern, (incredible amount of materials for free! might be slightly outdated though) Website
  • Mergers and Acquisitions: A Condensed Practitioner's Guide - Steven Bragg, Book $55
  • Mergers and Acquisitions from A to Z - Andrew Sherman, Book $28
  • The Mergers and Acquisitions Handbook (Very good materials. Rare!) - Milton Rock et al., Book $31
  • Mergers, Acquisitions, and Corporate Restructurings - Patrick A. Gaughan, Book $65

Private Equity

  • Introduction to Private Equity - Universita Bocconi, Videos on Coursera
  • Private Equity: Wharton Business School, Videos on YouTube
  • International Private Equity - London Business School, Book $75
  • Private Capital - London Business School, Volume 1 - Funds Book $95 / Volume 2 - Investment Book $95

Note: if you want an exhaustive list of PE and VC related materials and looking forward to work in PE/VC, visit Venture-Evolved.

Project and Infrastructure Finance

  • Financing and Investing in Infrastructure - Bocco ni University, Videos on Coursera
  • Project Finance: Funding Projects Successfully - TUDelft, Videos on edX
  • Public Private Partnership to provide public infrastructure assets and services - World Bank, Guidebook
  • Principles of Project Finance - E. R. Yescombe, Book $67

Default Risk on Bonds / Fixed Income / Credit / Loan

  • Credit Risk Materials - Stephen Schaefer (2012, LBS Professor 🤘), Materials
  • Credit Risk Modelling: Theory and Applications - David Lando, Book $130
  • Active Credit Portfolio Management in Practice - Jeffrey Bohn and Roger Stein, (Very good book, aimed for practical work on credit risk 👍), Book $85
  • Credit Derivatives: A Primer on Credit Risk, Modeling, and Instruments - George Chako et al. (a good introductory book), Book $18
  • Credit Risk - Darrell Duffie and Kenneth Singleton, Book $71

Fixed Income / Bonds

  • Fixed Income Course - Hanyang University Business School, Course Materials
  • Bond Markets, Analysis, and Strategies - Frank J. Fabozzi, Book $40
  • Fixed Income Securities: Valuation, Risk, and Risk Management - Pietro Veronesi, Book $182
  • Fixed Income Markets and Their Derivatives - Suresh Sundaresan, Book $150

Derivatives

(can you suggest some materials?)

Financial Time Series

  • Financial Time Series - Wharton Business School, Course Website
  • Forecasting: Principles and Practice (with R) - Rob J Hyndman and George Athanasopoulos, Online Book Website
  • Analysis of Financial Time Series - Ruey S. Tsay, Book $114
  • Time Series Analysis and Its Applications: With R - Robert H Shumway and David S Stoffer, Book $61

Wealth Management

  • Richest Man in The Babylon - George S. Clason, Book $5
  • The New Wealth Management: The Financial Advisor's Guide to Managing and Investing Client Assets - Harold Evensky, Book $90
  • The Stewardship of Wealth: Successful Private Wealth Management for Investors and Their Advisors - Gregory Curtis, Book $42

Personal Finance

  • Personal & Family Financial Planning (good for beginner) - University of Florida, Videos on Coursera
  • Finance for Everyone: Smart Tools for Decision-Making - University of Michigan, Videos on edX
  • Clever Girl Finance - Elite Cafemedia Finance (they also published interesting podcast on personal finance area), Website
  • The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness - Morgan Housel (MUST READ! 👍), Book $16
  • I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Second Edition: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works - Ramit Sethi, Book $9

Real Estate Investment

  • Real Estate Finance and Investments Risks and Opportunities - Peter Linneman and Bruce Kirsch, Book $215
  • Commercial Real Estate Analysis and Investments - David M. Geltner and Norman G. Miller, Book $194
  • Real Estate Finance and Investments - William B. Brueggeman and Jeffrey D. Fisher, Book $56

Equity Investment Management

  • Active Portfolio Management: A Quantitative Approach for Producing Superior Returns and Controlling Risk - Richard Grinold and Ronald Kahn (introductory, good for beginner), Book $68
  • Advances in Active Portfolio Management: New Developments in Quantitative - Richard Grinold and Ronald Kahn, Book $70
  • Expected Returns: An Investor's Guide to Harvesting Market Rewards - Antti Ilmanen, Book $64
  • Asset Pricing: Revised Edition - John Cochrane, Book $88
  • Factor Investing: A Systematic Approach to Asset Management - Andrew Ang, Book $83
  • Efficiently Inefficient: How Smart Money Invests and Market Prices Are Determined - Lasse Heje Pedersen, Book $26

Financial Technology

Shariah Finance

(can you suggest some materials?)

Programming Skills for Finance

Python

Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, NumPy, and IPython - Wes McKinney, Book $46

R

If you want to try to learn programming by practicing, subscribe to DataCamp

Certification in Finance

Here is the list of world-renowned certification on finance:

  1. Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
  2. Financial Risk Management (FRM)
  3. Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA)
  4. Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF)
  5. Certified Financial Planner (CFP)
  6. Certificate in ESG Investing

Capstone Project

(can you suggest some materials?)

Other Resources

Read

  • Barron's - "...The single best financial publication out there. It is comprehensive, inexpensive, and dedicated to a single topic: the financial markets." InvestorJunkie.com
  • Financial Times - Some say: if it's not in FT then it did not happen!
  • Investopedia - Google search recommend this website all the time! 😄

Watch & Listen

  • Barron's Streetwise (Wall Street like you've never heard before) - Barron's with Jack Hough Spotify Link
  • Invest like the best (Podcast about ideas, methods, and stories of people that will help you better invest your time and money) - James O'Shaughnessy Spotify Link
  • Bloomberg Master in Business - Bloomberg Radio with Barry Ritholtz Spotify Link
  • London Business School - Videos Youtube Channel

Learn

Free

  • Coursera - flexible, affordable, job-relevant online courses from leading university Website
  • edX - the trusted platform for education and learning Website
  • MIT OpenCourseware - top notch lecture from MIT Website
  • YouTube - you can find anything here Website

Paid

  • Corporate Finance Institute - one of the leading provider of online financial analyst certification programs Link.
  • Wall Street Oasis - the most entertaining and useful finance community in the internet Link.
  • Wall Street Mojo - place to learn investment banking skills Link.
  • Udemy - global marketplace for learning and instruction Link

Note: Non-Open-Source books, courses, and resources are noted with $.

Contribute

Please contribute input by clicking on this link, definitely happy to accept suggestions! Gonna keep this site as open source forever. Follow me on Twitter @hendriyono; Instagram @hendriyono

Inspired by: datasciencemasters.org