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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Understanding Financial Markets by University of Geneva

4.8
stars
5,593 ratings

About the Course

In this course, you will learn what the main financial markets and their characteristics are as well as how they are linked to the economy. Our very diversified team of experts will start by teaching you how the price of stocks and bonds are computed and why they move while you will become increasingly aware of the notion of risk and why it matters when measuring an investment's performance. The focus will then move to less popular markets such as gold, emerging markets, real estate, hedge funds and private markets. These will be analyzed with an emphasis on their particular risks and return opportunities as well as how they can help in building efficient portfolios. Finally, the policies of central banks and their impact on financial markets will be presented to you along with the link between the economy and the price of financial assets. All along these different steps, experts from UBS, our corporate partner, will show you how the concepts you just acquired are effectively applied in a leading global bank. This focus on practicality means you will not only understand what is going on in global financial markets but also start to figure out how you can use them to achieve financial goals, be it a client's or your own. Course Director and main teaching contributor: Dr. Michel Girardin, Lecturer in Macro-Finance, University of Geneva...

Top reviews

MC

Jul 16, 2017

Mr. Michel is really an amazing teacher! His lectures are vivic and greatly attracts my attention. I hope to take more of his classes because I've Learned more than I nomally can do in a short class

RK

Oct 5, 2020

Thank you! Coursera for providing me the platform for boosting my knowledge in Financial Markets, as i have learned various financial parts in this subject and this will help me in my carrier too.

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951 - 975 of 1,176 Reviews for Understanding Financial Markets

By zhang c

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Nov 14, 2017

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By Akshay G M

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Jul 24, 2017

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By Jonathan M

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May 29, 2017

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By Dave B

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Jan 3, 2017

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By Francisco L

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Nov 11, 2016

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By Diana K

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Apr 17, 2016

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By Suhrob S

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Mar 12, 2016

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By Shane C

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Feb 28, 2016

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By Elizaveta

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May 15, 2020

I do love the lecture, his smile lifts my mood at all times. I don't feel like finance is something boring or difficult when I'm listening to him. Perfect choice for the lecture. Very good energy he has! Looks encouraging and filling up with energy and motivation. However, regarding the course content, I would suggest more practical tasks that would be optional and would be based on real situations. China/Brazil/ India - the countries were mentioned but I would work with the figures and analyse data more before the tests so that I could gain mechanic skills, not just knowledge. There are nice tasks about calculating Enterpirise Value, yield, some others, still now I have no idea how I could use these skills in practice. You have here people who didn't do any maths for decades, so could be great to add some optional tasks(for those who want it) to help cone the skills. Otherwise, thank you for zest and encouragement and comprehensive manner of putting it all togehter.

By Muhammad I

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Jun 30, 2016

This course helped me a lot to better understand the financial markets , and the different assets in which we can invest. The presentation was simple and clear in most of the modules. Maybe more examples and detailed description needed in company evaluation especially for students with moderate mathematical background. The module of Bonds needs -in my opinion - reconstruction so that we can read and understand the changes in Bonds' prices we find in the economical websites and newspapers. Anyway, the course is motivating to know more & extend our knowledge. Thanks a lot to all the professors and lecturers who prepared that course. Special thanks to Dr. Michelle and Dr. Ines for their attractive and simple approach. I recommend this course to all interested in investment management either for themselves or for professional purposes.

By Steve A

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Mar 6, 2016

Generally this is a good course. It has a good bit of definitions about markets. As an individual investor I picked up some information on Net Present Value pricing of stock. Now that the courses are not free we have to determine does the cost provide the value for me. I think of the specializations as being one semester of schooling. A general semester last 16 weeks and thus one specialization last 4 months with a capstone project, so about 20 weeks. Total cost of the specialization is roughly equivalent to one semester class at most Colleges. The advantage to the current layout of learning is that it puts the information into a structured timeline. This places time limits on the info which has a tendency to keep me moving toward the goal.

By Preet Z

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Aug 23, 2020

The course structure was perfect - starting with the basics and then moving towards the more complex concepts. Weeks 3 and 4 were particularly very informative, it included some concepts and phenomena which one may not even learn in graduate and post graduate courses. Also, the real and very relevant data used to explain the concepts, coupled with very innovative tailor-made graphs crystalised the ideas in the mind. The only suggestion from my side would be that some concepts were indeed tough and more time could have been spent towards their explanations. Apart from that, one would not regret spending precious hours on this course.

By Mohamad Y

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Mar 2, 2018

The videos of UBS Lecturers aren't that beneficial. Professor Ines wasn't that beneficial and she didn't deliver her concepts in a simple way. I liked Mr. Michel and his way of delivering his ideas. I liked the graphs and the correlations from the inverted time scale on the right.I liked the big mac PPP and the visual aids he used.Finally the last part of module 4 had too many information that can be delivered better by giving a quiz about it and to give time for each topic separately.

I enjoyed this course so much and I would recommend it for my friends

By Vishesh V

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Mar 29, 2017

Course content has been very well designed to encompass all the major asset classes and impact of macro economic variables. While all of the topics covered deserve an individual course on itself, but this being a short-term online course, does great justice to the time and fee commitment from students.

I would strongly recommend this course to others.

Thanks to coursera for designing this course and the respected faculty members for their time and sharing insights into these topics with us.

By Jeffrey G

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Jun 1, 2020

The curriculum is well-planned and is easily understandable for learners without any financial background. The lecturers are very professional, too. However, the tests are too tricky -- you'll need to tick all the possible answers in a single question correctly before you're awarded a full point. Test questions should also not hinge on getting previous questions correct -- this potentially leads to a failing the entire test. Test questions should be independent of one another. Thanks.

By Yevgen M

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Mar 10, 2016

First of all, many many thanks for creating such a course and to all Mentors taking time to teach.

I wish, however that in some cases the Mentors would slow down and talk in a more comprehensible manner. Especially Guest Lecturers, as sometimes american accent is difficult enough to understand even when talking slowly let alone when going fast.

Special thanks to Professor Michel Girardin and Philip Valta for your invaluable and in-depth input.

Regards

Yevgeny Myronov

By BHARATH M B

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Sep 13, 2016

plain and simple(course content)! I found assignments were very simple , wish increasing in level of difficulty.Modules for reading should be made compulsory.I completed this course in three days.why the hell it needs 4 weeks?There should be serious look at assignments as they are the core part and key measure of understanding and passing should be in terms of questions not percent and there should be increase in number of questions.

By Neha K S

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Jan 19, 2021

It is a great dive into the financial markets subject however one needs to do a lot of reading outside the course to be able to get the best outcome of what the professor is trying to imply. It gives one a great opportunity to learn remotely from such distinct faculties, however, there should be some practical examples and quiz as part of this course to make it more meaningful but nevertheless it is a great learning experience.

By Kevin G

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May 6, 2020

The course was really good and I loved to see how passionate teachers were. I would only remove 1 star because the subtitles are terrible. I'm not sure how they've been introduced but I even mean the English subtitles which should only be a transcription. If this could be done by a professional, it would improve the perceived course quality tremendously in my opinion.

Thank you very much for putting this course together.

By Rohini B

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Jul 16, 2018

The program is very good and I feel I am learning a lot but it assumes I know how to work with the mathematical formula's but I haven't done any derivative work for over 20 years and thus I would like the course to have a little addition bit to make sure these mathematical formula are explained and exercises given to help really learn them. I found the bearish and bullish curve very difficult to understand.

By SISON, K K (

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Jan 14, 2021

Modules 1 and 2 were fun! I really liked all the professors. However, I found it really hard to grasp the line graphs in Modules 3 and 4. I always get a little lost whenever there is a line graph presented. Overall, this is a very good course. Although I can't guarantee that it is for people who have zero knowledge in the financial market, it is nice if you have at least a little knowledge about it.

By Cindy M

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Aug 5, 2017

I had been a bit leery of taking this course because I feared a language barrier, but all of the instructors so far have spoken English very clearly. The information is well presented, although I sometimes find the graphs with the inverted scale on the right hand side confusing at first. I would recommend this class to others who are interested in getting the basics of how financial markets work.

By Craig H

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Mar 24, 2022

Sometimes the lecturers would be less than clear about the content on screen vs what they were discussing. Multiple times I had to rewatch/reread the transcript + the deck in order to fully grasp what they were saying, and even then there were still a few times where I just think he skipped some relevant info that would have provided more context. Otherwise, really, really great intro.

By Krista T

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May 2, 2018

Concise and fairly simple introduction (or review, if you are familiar with the topics) into financial markets. Establishes macroeconomy - financial markets linkages well. Background knowledge of topics is useful in understanding issues such as inflation and interest rates. Not mathematically heavy, but good content for a short course such as this one.

By Carlos G

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Mar 11, 2018

I really liked this course, I could understand the stock and bond markets, how the interest rate can affect the economc growth and inflation. In the same way, I learned how to value firms, equities and bonds. I'm ready to take up the next course from Investment Management Specialization. I highly recommend this program.