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LinkedIn Learning

Finance Foundations

via LinkedIn Learning

Overview

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Get a basic introduction to the world of finance, from analyzing risk and return and obtaining financing to understanding how markets and banks operate.

Syllabus

Introduction
  • The essence of finance
  • Course is not financial investing advice
1. What Is Finance?
  • The board of directors discuss finance
  • Finance inside of companies
  • Finance outside of companies
2. Understanding Financial Statements
  • Introducing financial statements
  • Overview of financial statements
  • The balance sheet
  • The income statement
  • The statement of cash flows
  • Debt and current ratios
  • Return on sales, asset turnover, and ROE
  • Price-earnings ratio
  • Forecasting financial statements
3. Short-Term Financial Management
  • Short-term financial management
  • The operating cycle
  • Cash management
  • Managing receivables and inventory
  • Obtaining short-term financing
  • Understanding internal controls
4. Risk and Return
  • Introducing risk and return
  • What is risk?
  • Why we don’t like risk
  • Reducing risk through diversification
  • Beta: The concept
  • Beta: Examples
  • Risk-free rate
  • Equity risk premium
  • Capital asset pricing model (CAPM)
5. Obtaining Long-Term Financing
  • Introducing long-term financing
  • Does capital structure matter?
  • Factors influencing optimal capital structure
  • Cost of capital: All debt or all equity financing
  • Cost of capital: Split debt-equity financing
  • Weighted-average cost of capital
6. Understanding Securities Markets
  • Introducing securities markets
  • The difference between a stock and a bond
  • Stock markets
  • Bond markets
  • Publicly traded shares: What impacts the share price?
  • Initial public offering (IPO): Microsoft
  • Can you pick stocks in the stock market?
7. Financial Institutions
  • Introducing financial institutions
  • Traditional banks
  • Investment banks
  • Investment funds: Index funds
  • Investment funds: Managed funds, private equity funds, and hedge funds
  • Insurance companies
8. Capital Budgeting
  • Introducing capital budgeting
  • Capital budgeting overview
  • The time value of money
  • Example: Buying a car in Hong Kong
Conclusion
  • Reviewing corporate finance

Taught by

Jim Stice and Kay Stice

Reviews

4.8 rating at LinkedIn Learning based on 5252 ratings

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