Gone are the days when people carried around wads of cash and hid their life savings under the mattress at home.
These days, finance is a much more complicated topic that explores ways of properly utilizing money and a range of other financial resources.
For organizations as well as individuals, the main goal of good finance is to ensure that they have enough money as and when the need be.
For this, they need to develop financial decision-making skills that adhere to the core business principles.
Fortunately, these skills can be learned, giving rise to the finance industry that is full of opportunities and great monetary benefits for those who choose to pursue a career in it.
However, financial education can also come in handy in other areas of a business. That explains why 5.2% of the respondents in a survey by the National Financial Educators Council reported that they were turned down from employment because they lacked the requisite financial knowledge.
The good news is that you don’t have to go back to full-time school to develop these skills.
Here’s a quick list of online finance courses that can help you:
1. Financial Analysis
This course offers insights into metrics like growth rates, margins, return on equity (ROE), P/E ratio, debt/equity ratio, return on assets (ROA), cash conversion cycle, etc. It is also a good leeway into a career as a financial analyst.
This is where you learn how to read and comprehend financial statements to make proper decisions considering a company’s financial strength.
Exposure to real-world case studies and practical exercises through interactive classes helps prepare you for a more lucrative future.
2. Financial Modeling
One of the most popular finance courses is on Financial Modeling as it plays a massive role in your career.
You learn about the mechanics of forecasting a company’s future performance, construct discounted cash flow and three-statement models, and understand how to evaluate mergers and acquisitions.
3. Behavioral Finance
As a theory-based finance course, Behavioral Finance can help you thrive in the capital markets and sharpen relevant skills.
This course gives insight into the impact of psychology on the way people make money decisions. You also learn how those in the financial sector are swayed by informational errors, cognitive biases, self-deception biases, and emotional biases.
It is essential to learn the reasons behind them and what you can do to tackle them with these inevitable biases.
Additionally, the course also discusses herding bias and loss aversion that negatively impact our decision-making abilities
This course is especially advantageous for those who wish to work in sales, trading, equity, fixed income, and other finance fields.
4. Financial Theory
This is an excellent course to understand the modern financial management theory, covering capital and investment markets.
Financial Theory discusses fixed-income securities, common stocks, capital budgeting, asset valuation, portfolio diversification and selection, efficient market theories, risky assets’ equilibrium pricing, and many more.
This course might be a little challenging, but it definitely gives a lot of information regarding modern financial theories and a great way to further your career and education.
5. Financial Literacy
Want to learn the basics of how you can budget, save, and manage your money successfully? The financial literacy course covers all the personal finance topics in detail for you to apply them effectively.
These include issues related to credit cards, budgeting, banking products, insurance, debt dealing, retirement planning, savings account, short-term saving, etc.
This course introduces you to practical, real-world examples to help you understand the core concepts. It also incorporates academic research to relate its findings with the financial decisions you take daily.
You get to learn a range of practical solutions to financial issues that you can use according to your age, situation, and priorities at a certain point in life.
6. Corporate Finance
Are you aiming for a career in corporate finance? This course introduces you to the basics, teaches financial concepts and theory and methods to evaluate investments.
Furthermore, you learn how to value bonds and stocks, measure risk, and calculate free cash flows. These concepts and skills not only help you if you are a prominent financial analyst but even if you are a small business owner.
With Excel’s help, you learn to calculate NPV, value bonds, and stocks and get IRR.
7. Communication For Financial Leaders
Financial leaders need to have good communication skills, and that is precisely what this course teaches. It helps you enhance and match the communication skills of the modern audience.
You can learn to recognize communication gaps, define the Perception Pyramid elements, and understand the ways people communicate in a workplace.
The course imparts knowledge on public speaking and presenting financial reports, giving you the ability to explain them effectively to others. You can also use these skills as a manager or a team leader to better manage your teams.
Conclusion
Financial courses are beneficial, especially if you are looking to pursue a career in finance. It’s a highly stable and rewarding field.
Besides, there isn’t a business or organization in the world that doesn’t have a dedicated department to handle the finances so that you can be sure of the job security.
For more information on how you can expand your education when it comes to finances, check out the Certificate of Quantitative Finance.
