Finance Fundamentals
An intuitive, interactive Finance Fundamentals course covering the core toolkit of modern finance: the time value of money, loans and amortization, bonds and the yield curve, discounted-cash-flow valuation, risk and return, the capital asset pricing model and cost of capital, options and derivatives, financial statements and ratios, and personal financial planning. Every lesson pairs plain-language explanations with precise curves, worked examples, hands-on simulations, and practice you can check yourself.
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What Is Finance Fundamentals?
Finance Fundamentals is an interactive online course that teaches the mathematical and conceptual foundations of modern finance — the time value of money, loans and amortization, bonds and the yield curve, discounted-cash-flow valuation, risk and return, CAPM and the cost of capital, options, financial statements, and personal financial planning. Every lesson pairs plain-language explanations with precise curves, worked examples, and simulations you can check yourself. 12 of the 36 lessons are free previews, and no prior finance background is required.
What You Will Learn
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Calculate future and present values, annuity payments, and effective interest rates with compound-interest formulas.
- Build and read a complete loan amortization schedule, and see how extra payments change payoff time and total interest.
- Price a bond from its coupons and principal, compute yield to maturity, and measure rate sensitivity with duration and convexity.
- Decide between projects using net present value, internal rate of return, payback period, and the profitability index.
- Run sensitivity analysis to find which assumptions drive a valuation.
- Measure portfolio risk and return, and construct the efficient frontier for two-asset portfolios.
- Estimate the cost of equity with CAPM and combine it into the weighted average cost of capital (WACC).
- Read option payoff diagrams and apply put-call parity to relate calls and puts.
- Analyze the three financial statements with liquidity, leverage, profitability, and DuPont ratios.
- Apply compound growth, drawdown, and real-return mechanics to budgeting and retirement planning.
Who This Course Is For
- Students and professionals who want to understand how finance works from first principles, without a finance degree.
- Analysts, consultants, and managers who work with financial models, forecasts, or budgets and want to read them with confidence.
- MBA and finance students who want interactive, simulation-based practice alongside their textbooks.
- Job candidates preparing for interviews that screen for financial literacy — analyst, consulting, commercial, and management roles.
- Anyone building personal financial literacy: loans, saving, investing, and retirement mechanics.
Course Modules
9 modules · 36 lessons · 12 free previews · about 9 hours in total.
The Time Value of Money
The single most important idea in finance: a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Compounding, discounting, annuities, and effective rates.
The time value of money is the principle that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, because today's dollar can earn a return while you wait. Four lessons cover compounding, discounting, annuities, and effective rates — the calculations the CFA Institute curriculum treats as foundational. All four lessons are free previews.
Loans & Amortization
How loans really work: the payment formula, the amortization schedule, APR versus APY, and the payoff impact of extra payments.
An amortization schedule shows exactly how each loan payment splits into interest and principal. Four lessons cover the payment formula, a schedule you build step by step, the difference between APR and APY, and how extra payments shorten the loan and cut total interest — enough to model any repayment scenario yourself. The Loan Payment Formula lesson is a free preview.
Bonds & Fixed Income
Price a bond, understand yield to maturity, measure interest-rate sensitivity with duration, and read the yield curve.
A bond's price is the present value of its coupons and principal, so prices move opposite to yields. Four lessons cover pricing a bond from its cash flows, yield to maturity, how duration and convexity measure interest-rate sensitivity, and how to read the yield curve — the working toolkit of fixed-income analysis. Bond Pricing is a free preview.
Project Valuation & DCF
Turn future cash flows into a decision today: net present value, the internal rate of return, payback, and sensitivity analysis.
Discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis converts forecast future cash flows into a present-value decision — the core method of corporate capital budgeting and business valuation, and the subject of Aswath Damodaran's valuation teaching at NYU Stern. Four lessons cover net present value, the internal rate of return, payback and the profitability index, and sensitivity analysis. Net Present Value is a free preview.
Risk & Return
Measure return and volatility, see why diversification is the only free lunch in finance, and build the efficient frontier of two-asset portfolios.
Modern portfolio theory formalizes how diversification reduces portfolio risk without proportionally reducing expected return. The framework traces to Harry Markowitz's 1952 paper “Portfolio Selection”, work that earned the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Four lessons cover returns and volatility, diversification and correlation, two-asset portfolios, and the efficient frontier. Returns & Volatility is a free preview.
CAPM & Cost of Capital
Systematic risk and beta, the security market line, the cost of equity and debt, and the weighted average cost of capital.
The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) converts a stock's systematic risk (beta) into the return equity investors require. That cost of equity feeds the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) — the discount rate behind most corporate investment decisions and DCF valuations. Beta & Systematic Risk is a free preview.
Options & Derivatives
Read option payoff diagrams, connect calls and puts with put-call parity, and build intuition for what drives an option's value.
An option's payoff diagram shows its asymmetric risk and reward at a glance. Four lessons cover reading payoff diagrams, the put-call parity relationship that links calls and puts, the factors that drive an option's value, and the intuition behind Black-Scholes. Option Payoff Diagrams is a free preview.
Financial Statements & Ratios
The three statements and how they link, plus the liquidity, leverage, profitability, and DuPont ratios that turn them into insight.
The income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement link into one system, and ratios turn that system into insight. Four lessons cover how the three statements connect, liquidity and leverage ratios, profitability and the DuPont decomposition, and working capital and the cash conversion cycle — the daily vocabulary of credit and equity analysis. The Three Statements is a free preview.
Personal Finance & Planning
Put it together for a household: the savings rate, compound savings growth, retirement drawdown, and real returns after inflation.
Personal finance applies the course's toolkit to a household: the savings rate, compound growth of savings, retirement drawdown, and real returns after inflation. Four lessons show how small rate differences compound over decades and how to think about a sustainable withdrawal rate. Budgeting & the Savings Rate is a free preview.
Why Interactive Simulations?
Many popular online finance courses deliver their content as recorded video lectures. This course is built differently: every lesson is an interactive page where you change an input — a rate, a maturity, a correlation — and watch the curve, schedule, or frontier update, then verify the result against a worked example. Topics such as bond pricing, amortization schedules, and the efficient frontier are exactly where manipulating the inputs directly makes the mechanics concrete.
| This course | Typical video course | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Interactive lessons: simulators, curves and schedules respond to your input | Recorded video lectures |
| The math | Every formula derived and demonstrated with worked numbers | Explained verbally, often summarized |
| Practice | Self-check examples built into every lesson | Separate quizzes or assignments |
| Free access | 12 full lessons with no account required | Audit tracks or trial periods, varying by platform |
| Pace | Self-paced; lessons open in any order | Often structured in weekly sequences |
Frequently Asked Questions
What topics does the Finance Fundamentals course cover?
The course covers the core toolkit of modern finance across 9 modules: the time value of money, loans & amortization, bonds & fixed income, project valuation & dcf, risk & return, capm & cost of capital, options & derivatives, financial statements & ratios, and personal finance & planning. Total: 36 interactive lessons.
Is the Finance Fundamentals course free?
12 of the 36 lessons are free previews — including all four Time Value of Money lessons and the first lesson of every other module. No account is needed for free lessons. The remaining 24 lessons require a Job Tests Portal account with either an active subscription or the single-purchase course unlock.
Do I need a finance background to take this course?
No prior finance background is required. The course starts from first principles — what a dollar tomorrow is worth today — and builds up to options and the cost of capital. Comfort with basic algebra is enough: every formula is derived step by step and demonstrated with worked numbers.
How long does it take to complete this course?
Each of the 36 lessons is authored at roughly 14–17 minutes, for about 9–10 hours of focused study across the whole course. It is fully self-paced with no weekly schedule: every lesson remains available to revisit at any time.
What is the time value of money?
The time value of money is the principle that a dollar received today is worth more than a dollar received in the future, because today's dollar can be invested to earn a return in the meantime. It is the foundation of virtually all finance — bond pricing, stock valuation, capital budgeting, and loan schedules all discount future cash flows. It is the subject of the course's first module, The Time Value of Money, whose four lessons are all free previews.
What is DCF valuation and how is it covered in this course?
Discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation estimates what an investment is worth today by discounting its expected future cash flows at a rate that reflects their risk. The Project Valuation & DCF module covers net present value (NPV), the internal rate of return (IRR), payback period, the profitability index, and sensitivity analysis — the standard capital-budgeting toolkit of corporate finance.
How does CAPM relate to WACC and the cost of capital?
The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) estimates the cost of equity — the return equity investors require for a stock's systematic risk (beta). That cost of equity is one of the two inputs, with the after-tax cost of debt, into the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), which companies use as the discount rate when evaluating investments. Both are covered in the CAPM & Cost of Capital module.
How is this course different from video-based finance courses?
Every lesson is an interactive page: you change an input and watch the curve, schedule, or frontier update, then check yourself against worked examples — rather than watching a lecture and trusting the math. Topics like bond pricing, amortization schedules, and the efficient frontier are exactly where direct manipulation makes the mechanics click. The 12 free preview lessons need no account, so you can judge the format directly before paying anything.
Last updated: October 2026
New lessons are added continuously. Prefer to test yourself? Try the Finance Fundamentals Aptitude test.