You have worked hard. You have saved. You put your money to work so that it will increase in value over time. In other words, you have. invested . Are you earning the best return on your investments? Are you meeting your goals? Are you comfortable with your level of risk? How liquid are your investments?

Investing can help you achieve your goals. It is possible to build a secure retirement. It can be used to pay for your children’s education. Income from your investments can be used to support a cause or build a legacy. Investments are some of the most important choices you make. Shouldn’t the choices be supported by the best information, reasoning and analytical techniques?

Whether you are starting out in your career, in your prime earning years, or retired, it is essential that you understand your investment choices in great detail.

Consider the decisions that investors face in the market.

• Active or passive? An active investing strategy takes advantage of mispriced securities that can be traded for a profit. A passive approach seeks to build a well-diversified portfolio that can be put on automatic pilot. Many investors combine these strategies.
• What kind of securities? Securities are tradable assets, notably stocks and bonds. But they also include derivatives such as options, which are useful for hedging against losses. All securities are tools that work well under certain circumstances but not others.
• Can you spot opportunities? How do you distinguish an opportunity from a pitfall? It’s crucial to know the most common mistakes that investors make and be familiar with the analytical tools that allow you to gauge a potential opening for financial gain.
• Can you manage risk? Risk may be the most misunderstood factor in investing. Contrary to much financial advice, increasing your chance of success does not require increased risk. However, it does require measuring and managing risk effectively.

Advanced investments. The University of Cincinnati has put you on the road to a thorough grasp of cutting-edge investment principles and practices. The director of the Carl H. Lindner III Center for Insurance and Risk Management is the winner of multiple teaching awards for the clarity, excitement, and rigor of his instruction.

It is possible to master the art of investing.

In. Advanced investments. The central problem of investing is how to determine if a potential investment is a good deal. You learn how to measure risk using concepts from probability and statistics. The method for determining if a security will generate returns that compensate for its risk is explored. You gain an appreciation for how you can take active and passive positions in different securities by constantly weighing the relative advantages of active and passive strategies.

Professor Slezak walks you through a lot of mathematics problems and examples. You don’t need to work out the solutions yourself, but you need to know how investors use formulas. You will learn the financial meaning of terms such as expected value. Unlike most other investment courses. Advanced investments. You are immersed in the technical vocabulary and procedures used by professionals.

Many charts, diagrams, and on-screen equations can be found in the video versions of the course. Those who choose the audio version of the course will be helped by the graphics in the guidebook.

A course for serious investors.

The detailed information in this course will benefit some people.

• anyone who holds a portfolio of stocks, bonds, or other securities, or wishes to start one;
• those responsible for safeguarding an inheritance, endowment, or other substantial fund;
• retirees and people approaching retirement;
• new investors and students of finance who want to learn the best set of tools for building a portfolio;
• industry professionals who wish to see financial quantitative analysis in action;
• corporate employees who want greater insight into their firm’s financial operation; and
• anyone interested in how the economy works—and sometimes doesn’t work, as in the financial crisis of 2008.

This course will give you the background to communicate your goals and monitor your portfolio if you delegate the management of your investments to a professional. Professor Slezak says that bad managers are out there. Managers who do well in the market may do so out of chance or because they have shifted to a low-risk strategy to protect their long-term ranking.

Do your homework.

The essentials are included in some of Professor Slezak’s investment tips.

• Don’t act on hunches: Part of knowing is knowing when you don’t know. If you don’t have information that justifies an active position, then it’s better to be passive.
• Think in terms of net present value (NPV): If you manage a business, NPV is the key measure for evaluating proposed projects. It also guides you in everyday decisions about the firm.
• Variability by itself is not risk: Risk is often thought of as the variability in the return on a security. However, you can combine securities and actually control the risk.
• Do your homework: Before you follow an active strategy, realize that with active management you are making bets. That realization should focus your mind on the kind of analysis you need to do.

When he was the faculty advisor to the student-managed fund at the University of Cincinnati, he developed a framework that allowed students to actively manage their joint portfolio but that also allowed them to neglect it due to their busy lives. The same time constraints apply to many other investors, and you will find the professor’s framework a mix of active and passive investment strategies.

Professor Slezak uses colorful anecdotes, allusions to his hobby of fine cooking, and object lessons from the recent history of Wall Street in his presentation. His last suggestion was to not be afraid of the market. The market has done well over the long term. With. Advanced investments. You will build a solid foundation and hone the analytical skills that will allow you to use the market’s marvelous opportunities.

24 Lectures

1 Investment decisions and goals. 2 A framework for investing. 3 Mistakes are made by investors. 4 There are characteristics of security returns. 5 There is a theory of efficient markets. 6 There is evidence on efficient markets. 7 Valuation formulas. 8 Bond pricing. 9 There is a term structure of interest rates. 10 There are risks in bonds. 11 Calculating interest rate risk. There were 12. Stock prices and value creation. 13 The present value of growth opportunities. 14. Modeling investor behavior. 15. Managing risk in portfolios. 16. The behavior of stock prices. 17 Capital asset pricing model 18. Mispriced securities can be exploited. 19 Performance evaluation 20 Market making and trading. 21 Understanding derivatives. 22. Using derivatives. 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, Pricing derivatives. 24 Trade opportunities or risk?