When it comes to numbers, there is always more than meets the eye. In operational finance, you will learn how to read the “story” that the balance sheet and income statement tells about the company’s operations. The insights you gain from this “financial story” will then become a tool for short-term decision-making at the top management level relating to current assets, current liabilities and the management of working capital. Finally, by the end of the course you will understand the financial consequences of managerial decisions on operations, marketing, etc.

This course is designed to provide a basic understanding of financial statements with an emphasis on the balance sheet. However, to understand accounting driven financial statements, it is important to recognize that accounting is less about counting and more about measuring. “What is it that is being measured?” Well, as the course unfolds, you will learn about the three measurement questions and how the balance sheet helps to answer the first two of these questions. By touring a real company and interviewing real business people, the course describes the basic content of financial statements in a simple yet relevant context. The goal of the course is to leave a lasting impression about what balance sheet consists of and what it reveals. The next course in the Fundamentals of Accounting Specialization completes the conversation by addressing the remaining measurement question. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to: • Describe the purpose of a balance sheet. • Define the three components of a balance sheet. • Recognize and understand the meaning of several items typically presented on a balance sheet. • Explain the broader purpose of financial statements and the role of accounting in producing the financial statements. • Read and, to some extent, interpret real-world balance sheets. If you enjoy this business course and are interested in an MBA, consider applying to the iMBA, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price offered by the University of Illinois. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.

In the Introduction to Finance I: The Basics course, you will be introduced to the basic concepts needed to understand the financial manager’s decision-making process. To achieve that, you will learn about the basic forms a business can take and the goal of the financial manager. You will also learn the fundamentals of financial statements and how to measure a company’s financial health using financial ratios. In addition, you will explore how to allocate capital across time to create value. After learning the course, you should be familiar with major topics in modern finance and communicate with others within and outside of the business world. With a deep understanding of the financial side of the business, you will be in a better position to make informed decisions and plan for the financial future.

In this course, you will learn why it is rational to use the parameters recovered under the Classical Linear Regression Model for hypothesis testing in uncertain contexts. You will: – Develop your knowledge of the statistical properties of the OLS estimator as you see whether key assumptions work. – Learn that the OLS estimator has some desirable statistical properties, which are the basis of an approach for hypothesis testing to aid rational decision making. – Examine the concept of null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis, before exploring a statistic and a distribution under the null hypothesis, as well as a rule for deciding which hypothesis is more likely to hold true. – Discover what happens to the decision-making framework if some assumptions of the CLRM are violated, as you explore diagnostic testing. – Learn the steps involved to detect violations, the consequences upon the OLS estimator, and the techniques that must be adopted to address these problems. Before starting this course, it is expected that you have an understanding of some basic statistics, including mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis. It is also recommended that you have completed and understood the previous course in this Specialisation: The Classical Linear Regression model. By the end of this course, you will be able to: – Explain what hypothesis testing is – Explain why the OLS is a rational approach to hypothesis testing – Perform hypothesis testing for single and multiple hypothesis – Explain the idea of diagnostic testing – Perform hypothesis testing for single and multiple hypothesis with R – Identify and resolve problems raised by identification of parameters.

The practice of investment management has been transformed in recent years by computational methods. This course provides an introduction to the underlying science, with the aim of giving you a thorough understanding of that scientific basis. However, instead of merely explaining the science, we help you build on that foundation in a practical manner, with an emphasis on the hands-on implementation of those ideas in the Python programming language. This course is the first in a four course specialization in Data Science and Machine Learning in Asset Management but can be taken independently. In this course, we cover the basics of Investment Science, and we'll build practical implementations of each of the concepts along the way. We'll start with the very basics of risk and return and quickly progress to cover a range of topics including several Nobel Prize winning concepts. We'll cover some of the most popular practical techniques in modern, state of the art investment management and portfolio construction. As we cover the theory and math in lecture videos, we'll also implement the concepts in Python, and you'll be able to code along with us so that you have a deep and practical understanding of how those methods work. By the time you are done, not only will you have a foundational understanding of modern computational methods in investment management, you'll have practical mastery in the implementation of those methods.

In this course, we will apply the central concept and applications of Time Value of Money (TVM) to explore the structure and pricing of stocks and bonds at an introductory level. In this course, you will learn about bonds, different types of bonds (Zero Coupon bonds, Government bonds). You will learn about bond pricing calculations and see their direct connection to market data on bonds. You will also learn about stocks, and their pricing and valuation. You will learn about growth and dividend stocks and how to use market data. After completing this course, you will have an understanding of the two fundamental and pervasive ways in which savers transfer money to governments and corporations. You will be able to apply all this knowledge to personal investing decisions and, importantly, these same tools and frameworks are applicable to corporate decisions. This course is part of the four-course Foundational Finance for Strategic Decision Making Specialization.

In this 1-hour long project-based course, you will learn how to extract stock price data from public sources, build Japanese candlestick charts and customize them, interpret stock price charts and draw conclusions. This course runs on Coursera's hands-on project platform called Rhyme. On Rhyme, you do projects in a hands-on manner in your browser. You will get instant access to pre-configured cloud desktops containing all of the software and data you need for the project. Everything is already set up directly in your Internet browser so you can just focus on learning. For this project, you’ll get instant access to a cloud desktop with Google Chrome pre-installed. Prerequisites: In order to be successful in this project, you should be familiar with Google Sheets. You are also advised to have some familiarity with the capital markets. This course's content is not intended to be investment advice and does not constitute an offer to perform any operations in the regulated or unregulated financial market. Notes: - You will be able to access the cloud desktop 5 times. However, you will be able to access instructions videos as many times as you want. - This course works best for learners who are based in the North America region. We’re currently working on providing the same experience in other regions.

In this 1-hour long project-based course, you will access and evaluate financial statements of publicly traded companies and learn how financial statement users rely on this information to make lending, regulatory, and investing decisions. You’ll also perform common accounting tasks like creating journal entries and producing financial statements. Note: This course works best for learners who are based in the North America region. We’re currently working on providing the same experience in other regions.

Impact your financial decisions and learn how to affect the performance of your unit's profitability and of your organization. In this course gain a basic understanding of finance and accounting concepts to drive your organization's growth. Upon completion of this course, you will have gained general financial knowledge and an in-depth understanding of the impact of your decisions outside your functional area. Content of the course includes selected aspects of finance from a non-financial specialist perspective. Specific topics include: financial analysis; planning, forecasting, and budgeting; cash flow, and strategic financing. This class will be interactive and will require the active involvement of the participants in finance related activities. Upon completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Explain the importance of finance and interpretation of financial information 2. Apply the concepts of accounting and finance to analyze financials 3. Learn about key accounting and finance terms 4. Examine financial statements by using key ratios 5. Explain the importance of budgeting process 6. Learn about key components needed to improve profitability

This is a peer review course. In the capstone project, you are going to apply what you have learned in the previous courses. The final output from this project is an estimation of a firm. You can choose either a public company or a startup depending on the availability of information on the firm. If you have your own startup, then you can do this capstone project on the startup. If not, then you can do this project of a public company. Therefore, the first step is selecting an actual company that you are interested in. Next, you have to do the research on and describe the firm’s industry and business. Based on your research, you make an estimate of firm’s growth, cash flows and earnings. In order to do this, you need to apply what you have learned in financial statement analysis. Once you find firm’s cash flows and earnings, you can apply what you have learned in discounted cash flow method and multiple methods to find the value of the company. In addition to the valuation, you will be given a hypothetical project and have to decide whether to take the project if the opportunity is given to the company of your choice. Be doing this Capstone project, you will complete your understanding of valuation and financial analysis of startups.