Market Microstructure (Coursera)

Market Microstructure (Coursera)

Within this course you will learn about price formation and liquidity in securities markets. You will discover the determinants of market depth and security trading. In particular, the course focuses on price formation and liquidity in securities markets.

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

The main issues covered are how to measure trading costs; how security prices, their liquidity and speed of price discovery are jointly determined, and how order flow affects prices; what are the determinants of market depth; how security trading is organized and regulated and how it has been reshaped by algorithmic and high frequency trading; how the organization of security trading affects trading costs and informational efficiency.
This course is part of the following programs:

What you'll learn
security market; trading; market liquidity and funding liquidity

Syllabus

Basics
This module presents the subject of the course and its main concepts: liquidity and price discovery, and basic notions of trading in securities markets.

Measuring liquidity
In this week you will learn that some trading costs are explicit, others implicit, and how to measure trading costs using different types of data. Furthermore, you will learn how to take the time dimension of trading into account.

Price dynamics and Liquidity (part 1)
This module talks about price formation in markets with asymmetric information. You’ll understand why in these markets prices respond to the order flow and you’ll know how the informativeness of the order flow affects market liquidity and price discovery.

Price dynamics and Liquidity (part 2)
In this week we’ll talk about frictions that contribute to the bid-ask spread and generate mean reversion in prices and you’ll learn about order processing costs. Moreover, you’ll know the imperfect competition among market makers and how inventory holding costs of risk-averse dealers.

Trade side and Market Depth
This week will explain how orders of different sizes have a different impact on prices and how price impact is an inverse measure of market depth. You’ll learn that depth is affected by order flow informativeness, market risk absorption capacity and competition between liquidity suppliers.

Algorithmic and High-Frequency Trading
By the end of this week, you will learn the fundamentals of algorithmic and high-frequency trading, their impact on market quality, and explore policies to mitigate trading speed effects.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Trading Algorithms (Coursera) Coursera
Indian School of Business - ISB

Trading Algorithms (Coursera)

This course covers two of the seven trading strategies that work in emerging markets. The seven include strategies based on momentum, momentum crashes, price reversal, persistence of earnings, quality of earnings, underlying business growth, behavioral biases and textual analysis of business reports about the company.

Nov 9th 2026
4 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).

Nov 9th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Creating a Portfolio (Coursera) Coursera
Indian School of Business - ISB

Creating a Portfolio (Coursera)

This course integrates all the learning from the first three courses and guides the learner about ways of building a portfolio of strategies and integrating the same into a hedge fund. In the first part of the course, you will be taught ways of measuring the contribution of a strategy to a portfolio in terms of risk and return. You will be able to appreciate the consequences of including a strategy to a new as well an existing portfolio. Next, you are taught various ways of conducting the tilting analysis in order to determine the optimal weight to be placed on each strategy.

Nov 9th 2026
4 Weeks
Finanzas personales (Coursera) Coursera
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Finanzas personales (Coursera)

Este curso dotará a sus participantes con las herramientas que le permitirán llevar a cabo una planeación financiera personal y entender la necesidad de salvaguardar su patrimonio y recursos financieros, así como los requerimientos mínimos que se deben considerar para tomar buenas decisiones financieras.

Nov 2nd 2026
3 Weeks
Global Trends for Business and Society (Coursera) Coursera
University of Pennsylvania

Global Trends for Business and Society (Coursera)

In this course, you’ll learn to analyze rapidly changing global trends, their effects on consumer and labor markets, financial systems, and geopolitical relationships among countries all over the world. Professor Mauro Guillen of the Wharton School has designed this course to help you understand the magnitude of influence these trends have on the business world and society.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Risk, Return and Valuation (Coursera) Coursera
Yunus Social Business Fund Bengaluru

Risk, Return and Valuation (Coursera)

This course is part of a Specialization titled “Strategy and Finance for a Lifecycle of a Social Business”, with a follow-on project-based course on understanding and evaluating a business focused on addressing a societal issue. The beauty of a modern decision-making framework is that it can be used to understand value creation at any level – the individual or business or societal. The applications however become increasingly complex as your lens expands from the individual to the corporate/nonprofit to the global society.

Nov 11th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Advanced Concepts in Time Value of Money (TVM) (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Advanced Concepts in Time Value of Money (TVM) (Coursera)

This course builds upon the fundamental concept of Time Value of Money (TVM) using more advanced applications and questions. You will apply the TVM concept in real-life problems of financial planning and saving for college. You will also learn more about loans and apply TVM concepts to borrowing and lending. You will realize that — while the applications are seemingly more complex, but when seen and broken-up into bite-size components — the framework, principles, and tools remain the same.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Fundamentals of Investing (Coursera) Coursera
SoFi

Fundamentals of Investing (Coursera)

This is primarily aimed at novice investors who want to better understand the concept of investing and how it can fit into their overall financial plan. Taught by a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional, this course will cover different investment vehicles, risk tolerance, diversification, and the difference between active and passive investing, as well as investment fees and taxes.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Corporate Finance I: Measuring and Promoting Value Creation (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Corporate Finance I: Measuring and Promoting Value Creation (Coursera)

In this course you will learn how to use key finance principles to understand and measure business success and to identify and promote true value creation. You will learn how to use accounting information to form key financial ratios to measure a company’s financial health and to manage a company's short-term and long-term liquidity needs. You will also learn how to use valuation techniques to make sound business investment and acquisition decisions. Finally, you will learn how to incorporate risk and uncertainty into investment decisions and how to evaluate the performance of existing investments.

Nov 4th 2026
4 Weeks
Optimization Methods in Asset Management (Coursera) Coursera
Columbia University

Optimization Methods in Asset Management (Coursera)

This course focuses on applications of optimization methods in portfolio construction and risk management. The first module discusses portfolio construction via Mean-Variance Analysis and Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) in an arbitrage-free setting. Next, it demonstrates the application of the security market line and sharpe optimal portfolio in the exercises. The second module involves the difficulties in implementing Mean-Variance techniques in a real-world setting and the potential methods to deal with it.

Nov 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks
Forex - Trading Around the World (Coursera) Coursera
Interactive Brokers

Forex - Trading Around the World (Coursera)

In this course, we’ll introduce you to the foreign currency market, including who participates in it and some of their reasons for doing so. You’ll also gain an understanding of the complex nature of certain trading products, as well as some of the risks investors typically face. We’ll also explore the use of margin in your account and provide you with a case study, showing how to invest in the stock of a non-domestic company listed on a foreign exchange, as well as guide you through entering an overseas trade on an online trading platform.

Nov 9th 2026
3 Weeks