Finance Fundamentals: Investment Theory and Practice (FutureLearn)

Offered by The Open University,
Finance Fundamentals: Investment Theory and Practice (FutureLearn)


Look at the investment choices open to you, and the risks and returns of each. Start managing your financial future effectively. Ensure your investments are effective and match your risk-return appetite. Research shows that UK households are poor at investment management, with a limited understanding of choices, risks and returns. This could mean that many people cannot afford to retire in future.

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This online course will give you the tools to avoid this nightmare. You will study investment choices, and the risks and returns of each; investment strategies and your risk-return appetite; and behaviours that can impair effective investment decisions.
The Open University’s Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance created this course, with the generous support of True Potential LLP.

What topics will you cover?

  • Investment planning and decision-making
  • Savings and investment products
  • Investment risks
  • Investment theories – diversification, portfolio theory, capital-asset pricing model
  • Investment theories – efficient market hypothesis, random walk theory, chartism
  • Investment in practice – methods employed by fund managers
  • Historical analysis of investment returns
  • Historical investment episodes and what we learn from them
  • Individual human behavioural biases and investment decision-making
  • Group human behavioural biases and investment decision-making

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

  • Explore the different types of personal investments and the returns they offer
  • Identify and to understand the key investment management theories
  • Identify investment management practices
  • Explore and review recent investment management stories
  • Identify and to understand the impact of behavioural factors on investment decision-making
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