#62 overall
Financial Markets
Coursera
7 recommenders · 7 threads · recommended in 5 years, 2009–2018 · score 8.1
A Yale course taught by economist Robert Shiller, covering financial markets, institutions, and their role in the broader economy, including historical and introductory material. Lectures are also available free on YouTube.
Commenters repeatedly recommend it as a broad, well-delivered introduction to finance and the economy, with one calling Shiller "a good lecturer and clearly knows his stuff."
Business, Finance & Economicsbeginnerfreevideo lectures#financial markets#macroeconomics#shiller#yale#investing
Recommendations by year
20062026
I don't understand the fear. If index funds dominate the market to the point of a near risk-free rate because that's what everyone's doing, you've effectively democratized the capital system to the benefit of the regular joe: companies still turn profits, and those become dividends. Dividends are why we buy stocks. That's what drives the whole system - not a zero-sum bilking of active investors. Yes, major growth spurts will probably be concentrated into a fewer select group of niche sectors and active traders, but that'll be their voluntary risk profile.
EDIT - I highly recommend watching some of Robert Schiller's Financial Markets lectures on Yale Coursera about general investment theory. Bogle is saying good things, but he simplifies it in a way that I can see might sound disconcertingly incomplete. You're not wrong to ask these questions if you're conscientious and smart enough to want more in-depth answers.
Robert Shiller (who authored this review) has an excellent Coursera course called "Financial Markets" [0]. It gives a broad overview of many important facets of the economy.
[0] https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial-markets
I would recommend Robert Shiller's course at Yale (available on youtube) which covers all those subjects + some.
Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners. On the lighter side there is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reminiscences_of_a_Stock_Opera... (especially good is its discussion of bucket shops—many swindles that exist today existed back then too). Also, look through Matt Levine's blog to see if he recommends anything. There are also other suggestions here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447438 I'd second tptacek's recommendations in that thread, including Shiller's Yale course (it's on youtube).
Apologies for having a strong opinion about the roots of the crisis which I think is reasonably well informed. And yes I am operating within some sort of framework.
I'm always willing to adjust based on new information.
I think I have a pretty good idea about how asset pricing relates to interest rates expectations and inflation expectations. If you want a better idea of where I'm coming from I recommend Coursera's Financial Markets course.
I'm not lumping them together. I said: "Why would anyone invest in productivity or infrastructure when the governments are signalling you will make a lot more money speculating on bubbles and we will keep backing you up in doing that. Cheap money is a double edged sword."
So I differentiate (to some extent) between the "real" economy (which no one is incentivized to invest in) and what the authors call the FIRE economy. I just disagree where I think the authors are pointing to a root cause where I see something that is just a symptom. I do agree with the authors points about the negative impact of bailouts but this is only part of the equation in my opinion. Also at the end of the day it's really hard to separate the "real" from the "financial". You can use the money created to go buy things in the real world.
There is not much new in the paper. Lots of people have talked about the role of debt in the crisis. Lots of people have talked about how bailing out the banks encourages bad banking practices.
There are reasons why this kind of thing is usually regulated. For excellent historical and introductory material, look at the coursera course "Financial Markets" from Yale (also on Youtube).
Actually while I have never seen a legitimate use for binary options elsewhere, they are more attractive in the bitcoin domain, where you really really want to limit downside risk. even at the expense of all other aspects of risk management...
I would suggest Shiller's Financial Markets lectures, I'm checking them out right now and they seem extremely interesting. Shiller's a good lecturer and clearly knows his stuff.
Also, if you're at the intro to physics level, you should really check out Shankar's physics lectures - I had Shankar several years ago and his classes (and books, for that matter) were excellent, he's a real fun teacher to have (though I can't specifically vouch for these lectures, as I haven't seen them).
Any good Economics Text book will do: like Principles of Economics/ Principles of Microeconomics, Gregory Mankiw
You can also try, although, personally I have not taken these:
https://www.coursera.org/course/microecon
https://www.coursera.org/learn/principles-of-macroeconomics
For Investment valuation and Corporate Finance Damodaran is one of the best sources:
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/
Visit his blog, read his books. He has online classes as well
Also you can try, (I've not taken this course): https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial-markets
For Value Investing, Benjamin Graham is a classic:
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Invest...
http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-C...
http://www.amazon.com/Options-Futures-Other-Derivatives-Edit...
And lastly,
https://www.coursera.org/learn/computational-investing