Computational Investing, Part I (Coursera)

Computational Investing, Part I (Coursera)

Why do the prices of some companies’ stocks seem to move up and down together while others move separately? What does portfolio “diversification” really mean and how important is it? What should the price of a stock be? How can we discover and exploit the relationships between equity prices automatically?

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

We’ll examine these questions, and others, from a computational point of view. You will learn many of the principles and algorithms that hedge funds and investment professionals use to maximize return and reduce risk in equity portfolios.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Portfolio Management and Market Mechanics
In this module, you will understand the course content from a portfolio manager's viewpoint, the incentives for portfolio managers, types of hedge fund, and how to assess fund performance; Also, you will gain insight into market orders, the basic infrastructure of an exchange, and computational components of a hedge fund.

WEEK 2
Company Worth, Capital Assets Pricing Model and QSTK Software Overview
In this module, you will learn how to value a company, and an overview of the theory Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM), its assumptions, implications and how you can apply it in fund management. Finally, you will learn to install QSTK Software.

WEEK 3
Manipulating Data in Python and QSTK
In this module, you will learn how to work with financial data, create a portfolio and optimize a portfolio using Python with Numpy library as well as QSTK and the Pandas library.

WEEK 4
Efficient Markets Hypothesis and Event Studies, Portfolio Optimization and the Efficient Frontier
In this module, you will learn about information may affect equity prices and company value, understand efficient market hypothesis and how event studies work; Also, you will learn about the inputs and outputs of a portfolio optimizer, correlation and covariance, Mean Variance Optimization, and the Efficient Frontier. Graded: Event Studies

WEEK 5
Digging into Data
We will go into more detail in this module about how to read an event study. We will also talk about the differences between actual and adjusted historical price data, and how to detect and fix wrong data.

WEEK 6
The Fundamental Law, CAPM for Portfolios
In this module, you will learn the fundamental law of active portfolio management. We will recap CAPM, and extend it for portfolios. Finally, we're going to look at ways that we can leverage the capital assets pricing model to manage, maybe even reduce market risk.

WEEK 7
Information Feeds and Technical Analysis
In this module, we will dive deeper into a few examples of information feeds, and learn about technical analysis, and look at a few example technical indicators. Finally, we are going to learn about Bollinger Bands.

WEEK 8
Jensen's Alpha, Back Testing and Machine Learning
In this module, we're going to learn about another measure of a fund performance called Jensen's Alpha, and dig deeper into back testing. We will also take a sneak peek at machine learning.

Note: This course is currently not available.

Related Courses

The Power of Markets I: The Basics of Supply and Demand and Consumer Behavior (Coursera) Coursera
University of Rochester

The Power of Markets I: The Basics of Supply and Demand and Consumer Behavior (Coursera)

This opening module of the Power of Markets course covers the basic assumptions about market participants made by economists, the concept of opportunity cost, and the key determinants of supply and demand. We will then learn how to use the supply-demand framework to explain and predict market outcomes and to show how government policies affect those market outcomes. We will look at how quantity demanded and supplied respond to their key determinants in quantitative (elasticity) as well as qualitative terms. The last two weeks of the first module will investigate consumer behavior more closely and show how consumer choices are driven by the interplay of preferences and budget constraints.

Jul 6th 2026
4 Weeks
Introduction to Economic Theories (Coursera) Coursera
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Introduction to Economic Theories (Coursera)

Wondering why economists have not predicted serious financial crises? Shocked by economic assumptions of human behavior as self-centered and focusing only on what can be measured? Asking yourself if there are no sensible economic alternatives to free markets? Then you are at the right place to learn economics! This is the first online course that teaches economics from a pluralist perspective. Economic pluralism means that a plurality of theoretical and methodological viewpoints is regarded as valuable in itself and is simply the best way in which economics can make progress in understanding the world.

Jul 6th 2026
5-12 Weeks
The Power of Markets III: Input Markets and Promoting Efficiency (Coursera) Coursera
University of Rochester

The Power of Markets III: Input Markets and Promoting Efficiency (Coursera)

The final module of the Power of Markets course begins by further exploring firm behavior in imperfectly competitive market settings: how firms with monopoly power can increase profits through price discrimination; and the price-output combinations we can expect firms to select in cases of monopolistic competition and oligopoly. We will also analyze monopolies from an efficiency perspective and look at the effects of imperfect information on firm and consumer behavior. We will next turn to exploring input markets and what determines the demand for an input by a firm, an industry, and the overall market.

Jul 6th 2026
4 Weeks
Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) (Coursera)

This course aims to teach everyone the basics of programming computers using Python. We cover the basics of how one constructs a program from a series of simple instructions in Python. The course has no pre-requisites and avoids all but the simplest mathematics. Anyone with moderate computer experience should be able to master the materials in this course.

Jul 6th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Problem Solving with Excel (Coursera) Coursera
PwC

Problem Solving with Excel (Coursera)

This course explores Excel as a tool for solving business problems. In this course you will learn the basic functions of excel through guided demonstration. Each week you will build on your excel skills and be provided an opportunity to practice what you’ve learned. Finally, you will have a chance to put your knowledge to work in a final project. This course was created by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP with an address at 300 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10017.

Jul 6th 2026
4 Weeks
Exploring and Producing Data for Business Decision Making (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Exploring and Producing Data for Business Decision Making (Coursera)

This course provides an analytical framework to help you evaluate key problems in a structured fashion and will equip you with tools to better manage the uncertainties that pervade and complicate business processes. Specifically, you will be introduced to statistics and how to summarize data and learn concepts of frequency, normal distribution, statistical studies, sampling, and confidence intervals.

Jul 6th 2026
4 Weeks
Microeconomics: When Markets Fail (Coursera) Coursera
University of Pennsylvania

Microeconomics: When Markets Fail (Coursera)

Perfect markets achieve efficiency: maximizing total surplus generated. But real markets are imperfect. In this course we will explore a set of market imperfections to understand why they fail and to explore possible remedies including as antitrust policy, regulation, government intervention. Examples are taken from everyday life, from goods and services that we all purchase and use. We will apply the theory to current events and policy debates through weekly exercises. These will empower you to be an educated, critical thinker who can understand, analyze and evaluate market outcomes.

Jul 7th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Estructura de capital y política de dividendos (Coursera) Coursera
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Estructura de capital y política de dividendos (Coursera)

En el curso estructura de capital y política de dividendos se analizará la forma en la que una empresa financia sus activos a través de métodos internos o externos, estructurando así su pasivo y capital. Dichas fuentes de financiamiento se ven reflejadas en el costo de capital promedio ponderado (Weighted Average Cost of Capital- WACC).

Jul 6th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Data Visualization with Advanced Excel (Coursera) Coursera
PwC

Data Visualization with Advanced Excel (Coursera)

In this course, you will get hands-on instruction of advanced Excel 2013 functions. You’ll learn to use PowerPivot to build databases and data models. We’ll show you how to perform different types of scenario and simulation analysis and you’ll have an opportunity to practice these skills by leveraging some of Excel's built in tools including, solver, data tables, scenario manager and goal seek.

Jul 6th 2026
4 Weeks
Machine Learning: Regression (Coursera) Coursera
University of Washington

Machine Learning: Regression (Coursera)

Case Study - Predicting Housing Prices. In our first case study, predicting house prices, you will create models that predict a continuous value (price) from input features (square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms,...). This is just one of the many places where regression can be applied. Other applications range from predicting health outcomes in medicine, stock prices in finance, and power usage in high-performance computing, to analyzing which regulators are important for gene expression.

Jul 6th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Investments II: Lessons and Applications for Investors (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Investments II: Lessons and Applications for Investors (Coursera)

In this course, you will start by reviewing the fundamentals of investments, including the trading off of return and risk when forming a portfolio, asset pricing models such as the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the 3-Factor Model, and the efficient market hypothesis. You will be introduced to the two components of stock returns – dividends and capital gains – and will learn how each are taxed and the incentives provided to investors from a realization-based capital gains tax.

Jul 6th 2026
4 Weeks
Python Project: pillow, tesseract, and opencv (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Python Project: pillow, tesseract, and opencv (Coursera)

This course will walk you through a hands-on project suitable for a portfolio. You will be introduced to third-party APIs and will be shown how to manipulate images using the Python imaging library (pillow), how to apply optical character recognition to images to recognize text (tesseract and py-tesseract), and how to identify faces in images using the popular opencv library. By the end of the course you will have worked with three different libraries available for Python 3 to create a real-world data-analysis project.

Jul 6th 2026
3 Weeks