Trading Basics

Overview

The purpose of this course is to equip you with the knowledge required to comprehend the financial statements of a company and understand the various transactions that take place in the stock market so that you can replicate the strategies discovered by the extant academic literature. The first part of the course provides a brief introduction to financial statements and various common filings of firms. You will learn how to obtain information regarding a company's performance from them and use the information to build trading strategies. Next, you are taught basic asset pricing theories so that you will be able to calculate the expected returns of a stock or a portfolio. Finally, you will be introduced to the actual functioning of asset markets, type of players in the market, different types of orders and the efficient ways and opportune time to execute them, trading costs and ways of minimizing them, the concept of liquidity .etc. This knowledge is required to develop efficient algorithm to execute various trading strategies.

Syllabus

Basics of Financial Statements

This module provides a brief introduction to financial statements and various common filings. These are the most important sources for obtaining information regarding a company's performance. Most strategies are indeed based on financial statements. After completing this module you will be able to get the important details from the balance sheets.

Financial Statement Analysis

The purpose of this module is to equip you with the skills required to identify accounting information required for building trading strategies. After completing this module you will be able to calculate the key financial ratios.

Asset pricing theories

Before you start trading, you should first be able to calculate the expected return from a stock. The expected return comes from various asset pricing models such as Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) and Fama-French Three Factor Model. The purpose of this module is to equip you with the skills required to calculate the expected returns of a stock (or) a portfolio. After completing this module you will be able to calculate the expected returns of a stock.

Basics of Market Microstructure

This module will provide a detailed introduction to the actual functioning of asset markets. The module will cover essential details such as type of players in the market, different type of orders and the efficient ways and opportune time to execute them, trading costs and ways of minimizing them, the concept of liquidity .etc. This is required to develop efficient algorithm to execute various trading strategies. After completing this module you will have a clear idea of different types of orders and which orders to use when.