Foundations of Modern Finance I
A mathematically rigorous framework to understand financial markets delivered with data-driven insights from MIT professors.
Course Information
Certificate Track
Learn for Free
About this Course
This is a two-part course that provides a rigorous and comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of modern finance and their applications to business challenges in valuation, investments, and corporate financial decisions under a unified framework.
Finance provides a core function in any productive economy by providing a mechanism for savings, investment, and liquidity. Whether you are in an industrialized country or a developing country, financial services are essential for smooth functioning of the economy.
Completing this course and MicroMasters program will help you prepare for a career as a financial analyst, financial advisor, vice president for finance, chief financial officer, and more.
What you'll learn
- Valuation of fixed income securities and common stocks
- Risk analysis, the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), and the Efficient Market Hypothesis
- Introduction to corporate finance and capital budgeting
- Valuation of derivative securities
- Portfolio theory and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM)
- Corporate financial decisions
- Real options, capital structure, payout policy, corporate bonds; and
- Interaction between investment and financing decisions
Prerequisites
Calculus (required)
Linear Algebra (required)
Probability and Statistics (suggested)
Meet your instructors
Leonid Kogan
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Professor of Management and Professor of Finance
Leonid Kogan is the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Professor of Management and a Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research covers theoretical and empirical topics in capital markets. Dr. Kogan has published extensively in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Political Economy, and Operations Research. Dr. Kogan has won several professional awards, including the 1998 Lehman Brothers Fellowship for Research Excellence in Finance for his work on the asset pricing implications of investment irreversibility; the 2004 FAME Research Prize and the 2006 Smith Breeden Prize for his work on the price impact and survival of irrational traders; the 2007 Crowell Memorial Prize for his work on output durability and stock returns; the 2013 Crowell Memorial Prize for his work on technological innovation and growth; the 2013 Whitebox Advisors Award for his work on the price impact of mutual fund trading and timing of SEOs; and the 2014 Amundi Smith Breeden Prize for his work on the effect of technology shocks on stock prices. He received his M.Sc. degree in mechanics and applied mathematics from the Moscow State University, a Ph.D. in mechanics from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. degree in finance from MIT.
