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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Global Financial Markets and Instruments by Rice University

4.5
stars
2,079 ratings

About the Course

Get a running start in the high-stakes world of financial investment! This first course is designed to help you become an informed investor by providing you with the essential concepts for long-term success in managing money. You’ll start by learning the role of financial markets and financial assets in a well-functioning economy. From there, you’ll learn about the wide range of financial instruments available in major asset classes, their features and valuations. You’ll explore how financial markets actually operate in the real world, focusing on how and where securities are traded and how various market types differ from one another in practice. You will also learn the basics of algorithmic trading, dark pools, buying on margin and short selling. By the end of the course, learners will be able to: • List and distinguish the different financial instruments available to an investor • Compare global financial markets • Explain the features of equity, debt, and derivative instruments • Define traditional and alternative asset classes • Discuss different trading venues and mechanics of securities trading • Discuss the current trends affecting today’s financial markets This course is designed to be accessible for students of all knowledge levels and gives you the actionable foundation needed to manage money in a post-crisis world. ________________________________________ WEEK 1 Module 1: Introduction & Review of Elementary Finance Tools This module introduces the Investment and Portfolio Management Specialization, which is made up of four courses. This module discusses how the first course, Global Financial Markets and Assets, is organized. It outlines the different stages of the investment management process, which guides the focus of the Specialization. It also reviews basic finance concepts and tools such as time value of money, computing returns, discounting and compounding. Topics covered include: • Familiarize with the organization of the class • Meet the professor and your peers • Explain the investment management process • Review elementary concepts in finance • Compute present value or future value of a single cash flow • Compute present value of future value of a stream of cash flows • Define an annuity or perpetuity • Apply time value of money tools to solve basic mortgage, loan or retirement problems ________________________________________ WEEK 2 Module 2: Financial system & financial assets: fixed income securities In this and the next two modules, we cover the key institutional features of financial markets and instruments. We ask the following questions: Why do financial markets exist? What role do they play? What are financial assets and how are they different than real assets? How does it all come together? Basically, this is where I hope you will get to see the big picture of the entire financial system and how it comes together. Module 2 focuses on fixed income securities. We'll get started with a review of basics of bond valuation. You will learn about short-term money market instruments, U.S. Treasury securities as well as corporate bonds. After module 2, you will be able to describe fixed income securities, be familiar with their institutional features, and identify their cash flows. Finally, you will learn how to value fixed income securities such as Treasury bills, zero-coupon or coupon-bonds and compute yields. Topics covered include: • Explain the roles of financial markets • Distinguish between real and financial assets • Define and explain money market instruments, zero-coupon and coupon- bonds and features • Identify the cash flows associated with fixed-income securities • Define and explain bond market features • List the different types of Treasury securities and explain pricing and quoting conventions • List and define other long-term debt instruments such as corporate bonds, mortgage-backed securities, sovereign debt • Find the value of a zero-coupon or coupon-bonds ________________________________________ WEEK 3 Module 3: Financial system & financial assets: equity securities and derivatives In Module 3, we continue our overview of financial markets and instruments. We next focus on two other major asset classes: equity securities and derivative instruments. You will learn about how equity differs from fixed income securities, the cash flows associated with stock and preferred stock and how to find the value of a share. You will also learn about option strategies. After completing module 3, you will be able to describe all major asset classes, including derivative instruments such as options, forwards and futures. You will be able to explain how these differ from each other and their payoffs. Topics covered include: • Distinguish between equities and fixed income securities • Define and explain the features of equity securities • Identify the cash flows associated with equity securities • Explain dividend discount model • Find the value of a share of common stock or preferred stock • Define and list different types of derivative securities • Explain option payoffs • Distinguish between a forward and futures contract • Explain forward and futures payoffs • Identify traditional and alternative asset classes ________________________________________ WEEK 4 Module 4: Organization of financial markets and securities trading In this module, we discuss how financial markets actually work. We will talk about different trading venues and the mechanics of securities trading. I will emphasize a lot of terminology and the latest trends in securities trading to familiarize you with the institutional workings of financial markets. After this module, you will be able to compare different trading venues, trading mechanisms, and be able to explain different types of orders, including transactions like margin buying and short- selling; you will be familiar with the language and terminology you need in order to become an informed practitioner of investments. Topics covered include • Explain the roles of corporations, households, government, and financial intermediaries in the financial system • Explain price discovery process • Define different type of orders • Distinguish between dealer vs. auction markets; different trading platforms • Explain margin buying and short-selling transactions • Understand the current trading environment such as algorithmic or high frequency trading, dark pools etc....

Top reviews

OY

Apr 17, 2022

The subject was simplified for beginners in the field of financial market instruments. Instructor explained all the details very clearly. Overall I had a very positive experience with the class

AI

Jun 17, 2020

Global Financial Markets and Instruments is a MUST. Excellent instruction! I truly appreciate the opportunity to receive this course from such a prestigious University - Rice University.

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376 - 400 of 408 Reviews for Global Financial Markets and Instruments

By efi l

May 15, 2020

In my opinion, the course material can only be used as a quidance for further reading from sources and text books which you have to find because it is not an in depth course of the subject . A text book accompaning the material would be extremely helpful or even detailed handouts.

By Mark K

Feb 16, 2021

The professor can do a better job of showing her work. She often skipped from the problem setup to the answer without solving for the respected variable first before substituting the variable for the number. Once this happened, I was lost.

By Leonard S

Dec 21, 2020

outdated content based on 2015. professor makes calculation mistakes in videos. very difficult to follow the limited material and how it relates to the questions. video quiz questions are raised before the relevant content is presented

By Alex P

May 17, 2020

While course provides a good general direction, lecture videos are full of mistakes, handout material is useless and you have to complete the missing material by searching through other online resources

By Jonathan M

Jun 11, 2021

Inconsitent formulas where used in the solutions. These formulas were also not explained in the lectures which intentionally does not setup the students for success for those questions in the Quizes.

By Michael B

May 27, 2020

So many equations left with "you can solve that" or not fully explained. Most of the teaching was done like a classroom that you dread with writing on the chalk board and so many miscalculations.

By Nathan T

Jul 11, 2017

Brief highlight of topics, with no proper demonstration of formulae derivation. Examples are often brief and the practice questions are often much harder than the actual examples given.

By Wang J

Mar 6, 2021

The handwriting of the instructor is not so good. It's not easy to follow. I think it'd be better if the instructor use Powerpoint slides and avoid a alot of handwriting.

By B. Y

May 10, 2020

Quite a few types in lectures and quiz solutions. The typos discredit the lecturer in a sense even though she is actually very knowledgable.

By Peter B

Apr 22, 2021

Disappointed with the fact some videos have mistakes. I didn't find the notes helpful and had to use the internet to pass the tests.

By Fabián V

Jul 23, 2020

Aprendí mucho pero no es los suficientemente claro, no están bien hechas las traducciones, y los paper están todos en ingles, mal ahí

By Jean

Jan 15, 2017

Some calc and formulas are not clear otherwise the course allowed to have a general overview on financial instruments and trades

By John B

May 21, 2022

Course does cover the basics, but has some dead links throughout the quizzes and 'handouts'. Needs to be cleaned up.

By Lou V

May 23, 2020

Repeated math errors, some corrected, some not. Terrible instruction.

By Himanshu P

Dec 12, 2016

way too many peer reviewed assignments.

By Sahan G

Jan 16, 2021

Insufficient examples or analogies

By Ethan D

Jul 10, 2017

I didn't enjoy the lectures

By Julian W

Apr 6, 2022

If you buy a course or you pay for online education, you would expect updated, correct, and well-structured content. There are several reasons why this course get's only 1 star: - There are errors in the "calculations" which have not been corrected for 4 years (many students criticized that in the notes) - There are no slides with correctly defined formulas but the lecturer writes them down with inconsistent variables and explains everything on the go instead of giving some definitions and background information - as many students wrote in the forum, I also had to look stuff up on Investopedia. - The point before makes it very hard for beginners. I have a degree in business information systems and just had to look up some correct formulas on Investopedia as it was not correctly written by the lecturer. For people who are new to finance, this will be a hard one. They have literally no idea what the lecturer is talking about (also stated in the forum). - The voice of the lecturer is just too squeaky for me and I can't listen to that for hours

Summary: I canceled the course and took another one which was way better structured, easier to follow, and way more entertaining.

By Ka C S C

Jan 14, 2021

This course is horrible. I was expecting to acquire some finance basic skills before starting my first finance course in uni, but this has done little for me. I'm okay with the fact that no one is answering learners' questions on the discussion forum because there could be no obligation for Rice University to do so, but the content itself is absolute disappointment.

Despite her spectacular skills on writing in mirror, the lecturer jumps around concepts too quickly and I often have to find certain information on google, as these are not being covered in videos but will appear on quizzes, which is really frustrating and annoying. She probably thought she had explained the concepts well by using synonyms. For example, the slides say this is a conventional way, and she'll say 'so it's typical, it is what it is, right?'. Most of the time, she doesn't tell us what par values, market values and face values are. I get that this could be quite elementary, but as a student who haven't learnt anything about Finance, this course has done nothing -- Googling is probably more efficient and helpful than this cramped content. Hence the 1 star.

By James L

Mar 26, 2022

This was intended as a refresher. It was not worth more than the time it should take someone to read this review, sadly.

It was taught so poorly, that I am less confident than when I began, and wonder (aloud) if Rice consider this to be a marketing or a demarketing exercise.

Key concepts are introduced by a teacher not only stumbling over the introduction of the concepts leading to fundamental financial equations, but presenting erroneous formulas!

INTRODUCED! You only have the opportunity to make a first impression once.

Disheartening for a teacher by training to see the antithesis of the desired outcome as the initial model of these concepts.

Particularly given that it would have been all of about an hour to "re-shoot" the episodic confusion from the lecturer.

I proceed with Rice quite tentatively following this course, intending to cherry pick learning tasks, effectively further diminishing the value proposition of such courses.

By Benjamin

Mar 26, 2021

I find the introduction of this course not well managed or moderated. while credits to Professor Ozoguz for her knowledge, the methods and video explaination have not been helpful for me. the available resources do not have a step by step process and enough examples that i can ingrain it into my head and give the fact it should be an introductory course, do feel that the questions being asked are more advanced and i struggle to grasp the terminology and formulas given. when going through the answers one of the solution i remember is to get the answer by trial and error via excel. if that was the case there should be an introductory course on how to do that as well. I urge this module to be moderated again with more attention to detail.

By C_1307

Jan 5, 2023

They are way too many mistakes in this course, some of them still haven't been corrected 6 years after the initial launch of the class. The material is starting to be really outdated with articles dating back to 2015 / 2016. Some of the material in some of the quizzes isn't covered in the lessons or in one case, is covered in the following week lessons. I don't understand how this course is still on Coursera. This is by far the worst course I have taken on this platform and seeing its quality made me look at other platforms such as EdX. Also the course's forum is inundated with spam. I've notified Coursera but they clearly failed to fix the problem.

By Kelsea V

Jul 5, 2020

The professor makes constant errors during her presentations. One or two is okay, but I completed the first module and she made an error in almost every video. It’s not very conducive to learning. Also, she often said “you can figure out the calculation...” and wouldn’t provide the answer for us to check if we were right.

By Karim I

Jan 6, 2021

Sadly the instructor is very hard to understand. Her speech is not clear and she jumps around too fast without explaining how she reached solutions ,conclusions etc.

Very possible that this too advanced for my level of knowledge.

By Martin D M

Oct 23, 2023

A week in and there have already been several mistakes in the lectures. This is very discouraging, don't understand why the professor didn't they the time to redo the videos with mistakes, they are very short anyway...