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Understanding Investments

Series: Great Courses

4.6

(95)

Episodes

Rating

TVPG

Year

2012

Language

English

Publisher

The Great Courses

About

Learn how to invest with skill and confidence so you can achieve your financial goals. Economist and Professor Connel Fullenkamp explains the fundamentals of investing to those new to the subject while broadening and deepening the knowledge of more experienced investors. Understanding Investments just may be the smartest investment you make.

Related Subjects

Episodes

1. How to Stop Worrying and Start Investing

30m

In this introduction to investing, learn some of investing's fundamental ideas and the basic impediments that can interfere with sound investment decisions. Also, learn that there are ways to protect yourself, and that the path to becoming a sound investor is available to anyone willing to learn.

2. How Investors Make Money

30m

Can anyone actually beat the performance of the stock market? Grasp what the Efficient Market Hypothesis and the debate over its validity can reveal about the answer - and how your own opinion can shape your investment strategy.

3. Starting with Stocks

30m

Learn why stocks, though often not the best place for a newcomer to begin investing, can be the best means of learning about investing. Explore key ideas like dealers vs. brokers, the different kinds of buy-or-sell orders, and what stocks really are.

4. The Basics of Bonds

30m

In this first lecture about bonds - with the focus on a "buy-and-hold" strategy - grasp the variety of available bonds and the features most important to an investor: who issued them, whether they are secured, and the timing of payments. You also learn how to "ladder" your holdings for a consistent income stream.

5. Introduction to Mutual Funds

30m

Mutual funds are one of several types of so-called "pooled investments," which allow small investors to hold securities they perhaps couldn't afford individually. Explore how these pooled investments work, with the focus on the most popular type, the open-end mutual fund, and learn what to look for in a summary prospectus.

6. What Are Exchange-Traded Funds?

30m

Learn how this relatively new option for investors differs from mutual funds and about the advantages they may have over mutual funds for those making investments outside of tax-advantaged plans such as 401(k)s. You also learn what depository receipts are, and the key role they play in ETFs.

7. Financial Statement Analysis

30m

In the first of three lectures introducing standard tools for analyzing and selecting stocks and other possible investments, learn how to read a typical financial statement. Grasp the meaning of concepts like income statements and balance sheets, and learn what they can tell you about a company's strengths and weaknesses.

8. P/E Ratios and the Method of Comparables

30m

Your skills broaden as you gain an additional tool for drilling down into a company to evaluate its investment potential. This lecture introduces the concept of valuation models, beginning with the popular Method of Comparables, which uses ratios like price-to-earnings, or P/E, to value stocks.

9. Fundamentals-Based Analysis of Stocks

30m

Add another stock-pricing model to your toolbox - the Dividend Discount Model. You learn that such fundamentals-based models rest on two ideas: that an investment's price should depend only on what it will pay you, and that future cash is worth less than present cash.

10. Startup Companies and IPOs

30m

The glamour of initial public offerings can obscure their realities. This lecture explains how most IPOs are done, the "Dutch auction" method that is sometimes used instead, and what you need to know if you get the opportunity to participate in an IPO.

Extended Details

SeriesGreat Courses

Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

Connel FullenkampWriter

Connel FullenkampActor

Similar Artists

Michael Finke