Finance Foundations
Time value of money, compounding, discounting, returns, volatility, probability and statistics, the building blocks every finance model assumes you know.
Beginner
10 lessons
about 2h of reading
Hull Ch. 1-3
TVMCompoundingReturnsVolatilityProbabilityBeta
What this track covers
- 01
Time value of money
Why a euro today beats a euro tomorrow.
10 min
- 02
Discrete vs continuous compounding
From annual interest to e^(r·T), and back.
9 min
- 03
Present value & discounting
Pull every future cashflow back to today.
11 min
- 04
Simple vs log returns
Why financial returns compound better on a log scale.
10 min
- 05
Mean, variance & volatility
Average movement, dispersion and the birth of sigma.
12 min
- 06
Expected value, LLN & CLT
Why averages stabilise and distributions become normal.
13 min
- 07
Correlation & diversification
Why assets moving together changes portfolio risk.
12 min
- 08
Normal distribution & fat tails
The bell curve, the tails, and why markets are messier.
12 min
- 09
Stocks, bonds & indices
The core instruments behind most market risk.
13 min
- 10
Risk, return & beta
How much of your asset moves with the market?
12 min
- Quiz
Quiz · Foundations check
10 questions across cashflows, returns, volatility, probability, correlation, instruments and beta.
8 min
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