Best Free MOOCs In Business For September

Alternative Approaches to Valuation and Investment

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School: University of Melbourne

Platform: Coursera

Registration Link: REGISTER HERE

Start Date: September 15, 2016 (4 Weeks Long)

Workload: 4-6 Hours Per Week

Instructor: Paul Kofman and Sean Pinder

Credentials: Kofman is the dean of business and economics at the University of Melbourne. Holding a Ph.D. from Erasmus University in the Netherlands, Kofman is a heavily cited researcher whose peer-reviewed work has been published in the Journal of Risk and Insurance, the Journal of Futures Markets, and the Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions, and Money. At the same time, he has served as an editor for several academic journals including the International Journal of Money and Finance and the International Journal of Managerial Finance.  His research focuses on quantitative and behavioral finance.

Pinder is an associate professor in the finance department who has taught at the school since 2001. A co-author of the popular Business Finance textbook from McGraw-Hill Education, Pinder teaches courses in advanced corporate finance and corporate financial policy. His academic research covers capital raisings, derivatives, and corporate finance decisions.

Graded: Students will earn a verified certificate for completing this course.

Description: Developed through a partnership between the University of Melbourne and the Bank of New York Mellon, this course provides tools and models for helping investors better understand the different ways of measuring and evaluating risk-and-return. Over four weekly modules, which use data from leading public companies, the course covers areas like these:

• Three alternative approaches towards risk-and-return (and how they impact investment perception)
• Differences between systematic and unsystematic risk
• How the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) works in practice
• The formula for the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC), along with how it applies to values and weight of return (along with its shortcomings)
• The strengths and limitations of NPV analysis,

The course will be taught through 5-8 minute lecture videos, withy students evaluated from multiple choice quizzes and a peer-reviewed assignment.

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Additional Note: This course is the fourth (and final) course in the “Essentials of Corporate Financial Analysis and Decision-Making” specialization. The instructors also recommend that students possess a basic knowledge with statistics and algebra, along with being familiar with Excel, before enrolling in the course.