Stocks, Bonds, and Investing: Oh, My!

Learn the basics of stocks, bonds, and investing so you can be independent and confident about your financial decisions. This class will teach you how to prepare for retirement, manage your finances, and pay for college without the need for hiring a broker or financial advisor.

6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs

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Learning method

Self-Guided

$180

No instructor. Study on your own schedule

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Instructor-Moderated

$165

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Starting April 16 | May 14

Details + Objectives

Course code: sbi

Looking for a good solid class in the basics of stocks, bonds, finance, and investing? Haven't the slightest clue how to prepare for retirement, pay for college, or even manage your personal finances? Do you wish you could do it all without having to pay a broker or a financial advisor? Well, look no further. The class you need is right here.

Stocks, Bonds, and Investing; Oh My! is an enjoyable class that walks you through the fundamentals of investing. The course will not only teach you about the stock markets, 401k plans, and retirement, but it will also address personal financial issues that are often ignored, but absolutely essential, to your success as an investor. Each lesson explains these concepts in detail, so you understand how and why things work in the investment world. Provide yourself with the independence and confidence you will need to make your own investment decisions.

What you will learn

Gain a comprehensive and thorough education in personal finance and investment
Learn the personal financial issues that you should address and consider
Learn the definitions, uses, and more of stocks and bonds
Understand how the securities exchanges and stock markets operate and work
Learn what drives the true value of a security (mainly stocks) and how to gauge whether markets are overvalued by using value ratios
Understand of the different techniques used to research and analyze stocks

How you will benefit

Become more confident in your ability to make money by investing wisely
Learn everything you need to know to make proper investments for your future
Become an educated consumer and protect themselves against some of the lesser practices of the financial services industry

How the course is taught

Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
6 Weeks or 3 Months access
24 course hours

Outline

Welcome! This first lesson introduces the course and helps you set up your investing game plan.

You need to fully and fundamentally understand the theories, laws, and concepts that govern investing. This lesson explores what gives money its value, how to increase that value, and more. Then you will learn how this pertains to the three most important investments: retirement, education, and housing.

Which investments should you make first? Would it be more beneficial to invest in an IRA or should you be thinking about college? Or might this perhaps be a good time for you to invest in rental property? This lesson explores all of the benefits and drawbacks of these options to help you decide.

Mutual funds, IRA accounts, 401k plans, and other investments are primarily composed of two simple building blocks: stocks and bonds. This lesson takes a closer look at them in intricate detail. You will learn all about stocks and bonds, what gives them value, how to look up their prices, and much more.

Learning about stocks and bonds will bring you an understanding of a whole new set of securities and investments. Examples of these investments include mutual funds, options, ADRs, REITs, and much more. This lesson focuses on different investments, how they work, why you might want to invest, and the pros and cons to investing.

Where do you purchase said stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other investments? Never fear—there are many different exchanges throughout the world that are here to serve your trading needs. This lesson covers all the major global markets and exchanges.

In this lesson, you will meet all the different people and institutions involved in trading and investing, such as brokers and traders and different types of brokerages from—traditional, discount, or online. Perhaps most important, you will learn what these people's real incentive is in trading for you.

How are all these different stocks, bonds, and mutual funds traded? You will need an intricate understanding of the trading process, traders, brokers, and their incentives to know when you're getting a good deal. In this lesson, you will learn how to tell if you made a good trade or not.

Retirement programs were already briefly discussed, but the options are so varied, detailed, and important that they deserve a lesson all to themselves. This lesson takes a detailed look at the operations, contribution limits, and withdrawal requirements of IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP Plans, 401ks, 403bs, 529 plans.

While investing in your 401k may be good for your long-term investment plan, sometimes risk is a good thing. In this lesson, you'll look at stock valuation and analysis and review the basics of calculated investment risks.

In this lesson, you will discover research techniques that you can use to analyze and pick stocks as well as valuation techniques used to price stocks. You will also learn how to read a company's annual report. This is required reading if you plan to make it big by investing in stocks!

Your final lesson is all about researching resources. You'll look at a vast array of websites, publications, and other sources of information that will help guide your future investments.

Instructors & Support

Matt Crabtree

Matt Crabtree, CFP ®, earned his Bachelor of Science in Business, Information Systems Management, in 1999, a mini MBA certificate from The School of Management at Yale University in 2004, a certificate in Financial Planning from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business in 2012 and has received the financial industry's most rigorous and prestigious professional designation of Certified Financial Planner ™. After many years in project management, office management, and business sales, Matt began training individuals and organizations in areas of business finance, leadership development, successful negotiations, sales management, and customer service excellence. Matt has trained individuals and various units within the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as corporate organizations including IBM (technology), Accuray (healthcare-technology), and Gen-Probe (molecular diagnostics). Matt's natural aptitude for explaining his material in an easy-to-understand and enjoyable manner allows each student to gain insights into areas that are often considered challenging.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

FAQ

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Reviews

"I came into this course with no understanding of the terms and systems for investing. I came out of this course with more than I could have hoped for: understanding the terms, the many investment opportunities, how and were to do research, etc. This course was written clearly for the novice."

"I definitely understand more about stocks,bonds,and investing now, than when I began the course.I also can read and understand financial publications to a much greater degree. Thank you!"

"I enjoyed the course very much. It went into a lot more depth than I had imagined it would but the instructor provided lots of supplementary material. Aaron's writing style was superb; educational, informative, down to earth, and easy to understand."

"I feel the class will be very useful in helping me make decisions regarding my 401K plan. I'll recommend it to my colleagues....The humor the author used was refreshing!!"

"I got exactly what I wanted out of this course. I feel very confident for my investing future! I'm recommending his class to two of my friends."

"I have a bachelor's in Finance and an MBA. However, I have been out of the work world for 10 years to raise my kids. This course was a great refresher for me and helped me to get back up to speed. Thanks!"

"My husband and I took the course together and learned so much! We're much more comfortable gauging how our retirement accounts are performing. Thank you!!"

"I think it was one of the best online classes I have taken. The subject was something which I always had an interest in and was never able to understand just by reading books. This was a great opportunity for me. The instructor knew the subject very well and was always there to respond to the question raised in the discussion section. Thanks for offering this class!"

"I thought the instructor made things interesting and easy to understand. I started out with pretty much no knowledge of securities. I can now carry on a fairly knowledgeable conversation about them. I am anxious to learn more!!!"