Finance Fundamentals: Investment Theory and Practice (FutureLearn)

Offered by The Open University,
Finance Fundamentals: Investment Theory and Practice (FutureLearn)


Look at the investment choices open to you, and the risks and returns of each. Start managing your financial future effectively. Ensure your investments are effective and match your risk-return appetite. Research shows that UK households are poor at investment management, with a limited understanding of choices, risks and returns. This could mean that many people cannot afford to retire in future.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see FutureLearn's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

This online course will give you the tools to avoid this nightmare. You will study investment choices, and the risks and returns of each; investment strategies and your risk-return appetite; and behaviours that can impair effective investment decisions.
The Open University’s Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance created this course, with the generous support of True Potential LLP.

What topics will you cover?

  • Investment planning and decision-making
  • Savings and investment products
  • Investment risks
  • Investment theories – diversification, portfolio theory, capital-asset pricing model
  • Investment theories – efficient market hypothesis, random walk theory, chartism
  • Investment in practice – methods employed by fund managers
  • Historical analysis of investment returns
  • Historical investment episodes and what we learn from them
  • Individual human behavioural biases and investment decision-making
  • Group human behavioural biases and investment decision-making

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

  • Explore the different types of personal investments and the returns they offer
  • Identify and to understand the key investment management theories
  • Identify investment management practices
  • Explore and review recent investment management stories
  • Identify and to understand the impact of behavioural factors on investment decision-making
Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Research Ethics and Vulnerability: Ethical Research in Adults with Impaired Decision-Making Capacity (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Malaya

Research Ethics and Vulnerability: Ethical Research in Adults with Impaired Decision-Making Capacity (FutureLearn)

Learn how to conduct ethical research with adults who have impaired decision-making capacity. Effectively protect research participants with impaired decision-making capacity. It is your responsibility to protect research participants. Those who have impaired decision-making capacity are incapable of giving informed consent. They may not be able to protect their own interests and merit special consideration by researchers and research ethics committees.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Starting a Business 4: Business Processes (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Starting a Business 4: Business Processes (FutureLearn)

Understand how business works and performance can be improved so that you can take your business forward and manage growth. A successful business relies on processes and information systems; it is important that an entrepreneur pays close attention to how their business works and how performance can be improved so that they are in a position to take it forward and manage growth.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Starting a Business 6: Funding Your Business (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds

Starting a Business 6: Funding Your Business (FutureLearn)

Raising funds in an important when starting a business; find out which source of funding is most suitable for your business idea. A successful business requires funding to get it started. There are many ways to get your business up and running, from the informal such as personal savings and borrowing, borrowing from friends and family, to the more formal avenues like bank loans, raising equity to crowd-funding. This course will help you consider the finance options available for businesses, and how to fund the expansion of a business.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Personalised Care: Peer Leadership Foundation - Step One (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Personalised Care Group at NHS England and NHS Improvement

Personalised Care: Peer Leadership Foundation - Step One (FutureLearn)

Learn what personalised care is and how the whole population can benefit in England. Learn what personalised care is and how the whole population can benefit. As the NHS moves towards a more personalised health and care system, it’s important for people to have a clear idea of what this new, more targeted approach to health and care means for them. On this course you’ll learn what personalised care is, and how it can benefit the whole population in England. You’ll also hear how it works in practice.

Oct 31st 2022
4 Weeks
Get Started With Digital Marketing (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Coventry University

Get Started With Digital Marketing (FutureLearn)

What is digital marketing and why is it so valuable to businesses in today’s world? Find out with Coventry University Online. Explore the value of digital marketing and the challenges of digital disruption. On this course, you’ll have the opportunity to explore what digital marketing is and learn the key platforms and types of digital marketing that you can implement in your organisation today.

Jun 3rd 2024
2 Weeks
Essential Skills for Your Career Development (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Leeds,Institute of Coding

Essential Skills for Your Career Development (FutureLearn)

Take charge of your career development and identify the skills you need to plan and achieve your career goals. Learn the professional career development tools to get your career on track. Most people want to achieve career success, but how can you make it a reality? On this course, you’ll get the tools to take your career to the next level.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Business History of the FIFA World Cup (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of York

Business History of the FIFA World Cup (FutureLearn)

Trace the historic development of the FIFA World Cup as a business entity to build expertise in sports business and management. On this three-week course from the University of York, you’ll trace the business history of the FIFA World Cup. Acknowledging the broader cultural, political, economic and social context of the tournament, you’ll examine its status as a business supported by a system of increasingly powerful monopolies.

Self Paced
3 Weeks
Climate Intelligence: Using Climate Data to Improve Business Decision-Making (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
University of Reading

Climate Intelligence: Using Climate Data to Improve Business Decision-Making (FutureLearn)

Build climate resilience in your business as you learn how climate intelligence helps make decisions that mitigate risks. How exposed is your organisation to climate risk? Climate and weather projections hold the data that businesses need both to evaluate the risk climate change poses and to mitigate that risk. However, interpreting this data can be challenging. On this two-week course, you’ll learn how to identify relevant and reliable climate data for your business and explore how that raw data can be converted into information that connects with the particular operational and financial decisions you face.

Self Paced
2 Weeks
Uncovering Your Entrepreneurial Potential (FutureLearn) FutureLearn
Coventry University

Uncovering Your Entrepreneurial Potential (FutureLearn)

Explore what makes a good entrepreneur and how applying an entrepreneurial approach can create economic and social value. Reflect on and develop your own entrepreneurial approach to work. Taking an entrepreneurial approach to work can be useful in a range of contexts, not just starting your own company. This course will challenge your ideas about entrepreneurship and innovation and demonstrate how you can adopt an entrepreneurial mindset to benefit yourself and others. You will explore different ways to approach innovation and entrepreneurship in the workplace.

Self Paced
2 Weeks