Apply what you have learned about cryptography and hashing in previous blockchain to the Merkle Tree, which underlies the process of adding new blocks — representing new transactions — to the blockchain. This course also introduces the concepts of proof of work and proof of stake, which play an important part in ensuring the integrity of the blockchain. This course requires the purchase of two books for the completion of assignments: Drescher, D. (2017). Blockchain Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction in 25 Steps. (ISBN-13: 978-1484226032) Antonoupoulos, A. M. (2017). The Internet of Money, Volume Two. (ISBN-13: 978-1947910065)

In addition to discounted cash flow method, multiple method is one of the most popular methods of firm valuation. PER is often used among financial professionals to make a quick-and-dirty estimate of a firm value. In this course, you are going to learn the concept and usage of PER, PBR and PSR. In addition to these basic multiple ratios, you are going to learn how to make an estimate of enterprise value and founder’s ownership before and after additional funding. Startups require a number of financings before IPO. After taking this course, you are going to be able to answer questions such as What the price per share should be given the startup’s estimate of earnings in the future; How many shares the founder should give up to raise additional capital; and so on? In the discounted cash flow method and multiple method, you are always given earnings or cash flows to make estimate of firm value. In this course, you are also going to learn how to generate cash flows or earnings from the financial statements. After taking this course, you will be able to understand the meaning of financial statements such as balance sheet, income statement and cash flow calculation.

In this course, you will gain a thorough understanding of the blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, including an introduction to the necessary foundations in cryptography. The course will discuss blockchain as a distributed ledger and introduce distributed consensus as a mechanism to maintain the integrity of the blockchain. The other revolutionary technologies that are changing the world as we speak are artificial intelligence and machine learning. You will learn about the three major types of AI algorithms: supervised and unsupervised machine learning, as well as reinforcement learning. You will learn about the application of blockchain outside of finance. In particular, how blockchain fundamentally changes the way we deal with our personal data. You will see how the web 2.0 model--where big companies like facebook and google collect as much of your personal data as possible to sell it to third parties--is coming to an end. The new web 3.0 is decentralized and uses the power of the blockchain to put users in full control over their own data. Finally, we will look at the benefits and considerations of blockchain and whether blockchain is the right solution for your problem. #UCTFintech

In this 1-hour long project-based course, you will learn how to value a company or a stock using Comparable Companies Analysis, one of the most popular valuation techniques. This is used by equity research analysts, investment bankers, private equity professionals, and hedge fund managers throughout the world. In this project, we will work with the stock data pooled from Google Finance and financial data from Yahoo Finance to calculate the fair value per share for Tesla Inc. stock, through comparison with the stocks of GM, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW, and Honda. 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. 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.

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. After this you will learn to develop techniques for minimizing overall portfolio risk. You will also get a basic overview of the regulatory framework that is applicable to hedge funds. You will know about different types of investors and the expectations of each type of investors.

This project will help you create a business case presentation template in PowerPoint. This template will help learners share information necessary to your business case, make a compelling impression on investors, and present that information to maximize funding potential.

This course is part of a Specialization titled “Strategy and Finance for a Lifecycle of a Social Business”. It is an introduction to time value of money and will help the learner understand the basics of finance with the ultimate goal of valuing a company from a societal lens. The beauty of the modern decision-making framework is that it can be used to understand value creation at any level – the individual, the corporate or nonprofit entity level and from the point of view of society. The applications however become increasingly complex as your lens expands from the individual to the corporate/nonprofit to the global society. In this Specialization we will therefore focus on understanding the frameworks and tools that an individual and an entity (a startup or an established corporation, private or public) can use to understand value enhancing decision-making. There are two building blocks of decision making – time value of money and risk. In this first course, we will therefore start with an introduction to time value of money geared toward individual decision-making to both explore and measure the value of our decisions. In the second course, we will use the same framework to evaluate decision-making by entities – businesses – to create value. We will realize how the evaluating value from the lens of multiple stakeholders is inherently more complex. You are also encouraged to think from a societal standpoint because that, ultimately, is the difference between a social and a private business. The societal perspective is the most complex and market prices are typically not available for both the benefits and costs. Although introductory, this course will enable any learner to understand and analyze many decisions they regularly confront. It will also serve very useful if you are keen to hone your finance skills to make good personal decisions. The beauty of modern frameworks and tools of analysis is that they are logical and do not change depending on the purpose of business. However, to demonstrate social impact is very complex because prices for both the public good, and any harm created by our actions, are not available. It is also challenging to determine the incremental effect of a business on society at large. The combination of these issues makes all social impact and value specific to a business, making it even more important to use the same frameworks and tools developed in this Specialization while evaluating any/all impacts of a business.

In the Healthcare Marketplace specialization capstone course, key skills are engendered from the four prior courses to create an original medical innovation valuation. The first course in the specialization teaches the learner to size a population or market. The second course teaches whether the clinician will or will not find value from deploying a new innovation. The third course identifies the competitive landscape of medical technology innovations to compete or complement. The fourth course, teaches how to put a monetary value on the improvement in health resulting from a new innovation. The summary of these elements creates a document of high strategic value where the learner has demonstrated not only an understanding of the marketplace but what is required for the marketplace to advance. This is what is accomplished during the Healthcare Marketplace capstone experience.

This course will enable you mastering machine-learning approaches in the area of investment management. It has been designed by two thought leaders in their field, Lionel Martellini from EDHEC-Risk Institute and John Mulvey from Princeton University. Starting from the basics, they will help you build practical skills to understand data science so you can make the best portfolio decisions. The course will start with an introduction to the fundamentals of machine learning, followed by an in-depth discussion of the application of these techniques to portfolio management decisions, including the design of more robust factor models, the construction of portfolios with improved diversification benefits, and the implementation of more efficient risk management models. We have designed a 3-step learning process: first, we will introduce a meaningful investment problem and see how this problem can be addressed using statistical techniques. Then, we will see how this new insight from Machine learning can complete and improve the relevance of the analysis. You will have the opportunity to capitalize on videos and recommended readings to level up your financial expertise, and to use the quizzes and Jupiter notebooks to ensure grasp of concept. At the end of this course, you will master the various machine learning techniques in investment management.

In this fourth and final course of the specialization, you will synthesize your learning into a Strategic Action Plan. The goals of this course are twofold: One, it’s for you to identify a specific need or problem within the financial services industry that can potentially be solved using blockchain technology. Two, it’s for you to investigate possible solutions to this problem, and to develop a strategic plan for how these solutions might be executed. You will accomplish different project milestones each week, and will be introduced to several tools to organize your findings. Throughout this process, you will hear from real-world practitioners who have hands-on experience in the blockchain ecosystem. Additionally, by participating in this course you will gain access to our Blockchain Case Commons—a crowdsourced collection of blockchain applications and use-cases spanning multiple industries. As an outcome of this course, you will walk away with a consolidated, peer-reviewed Strategic Action Plan, which you can use to pitch your idea to your organization and/or potential investors.