U.S. CFA Course

Lesson 1 • Duties to Clients and Employers

Covers Standards III and IV on loyalty, prudence, fair dealing, and conflicts of interest. Connects fiduciary duty concepts to portfolio management and client advisory roles.

Lesson 2 • CFA Credential Structure and Levels

Covers the three-exam progression, eligibility requirements, and professional experience criteria. Anchors candidate motivation by clarifying the full path to charterholder status.

Lesson 3 • Professionalism and Integrity Standards

Examines Standards I and II covering knowledge of the law, independence, objectivity, and misrepresentation. Builds practical judgment for real-world compliance scenarios.

Lesson 4 • Global Investment Performance Standards

Introduces GIPS principles for fair performance presentation and composite construction. Demonstrates how ethical reporting standards protect investor trust.

Lesson 1 • Regression and Time Series Analysis

Covers simple and multiple linear regression, autocorrelation, and basic time series models. Supports factor model construction and return forecasting tasks.

Lesson 2 • Descriptive Statistics and Data Analysis

Teaches measures of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, and kurtosis for return distributions. Enables candidates to characterise and compare investment return profiles.

Lesson 3 • Time Value of Money Fundamentals

Covers present value, future value, annuities, and perpetuities with financial calculator application. Forms the computational base for fixed income, equity, and derivatives valuation.

Lesson 4 • Sampling, Estimation, and Hypothesis Testing

Introduces sampling distributions, confidence intervals, and parametric hypothesis tests. Equips candidates to evaluate research claims and back-test investment strategies.

Lesson 1 • Earnings Quality and Statement Adjustments

Identifies red flags for aggressive accounting, off-balance-sheet items, and non-recurring items. Enables analysts to restate financials for more accurate valuation inputs.

Lesson 2 • Financial Statement Structure and Mechanics

Explains the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, and their interrelationships. Establishes the accounting framework underlying all subsequent analytical techniques.

Lesson 3 • Financial Ratio Analysis

Teaches liquidity, solvency, profitability, and efficiency ratios with cross-sectional benchmarking. Connects ratio trends to business model assessment and credit analysis.

Lesson 4 • Revenue Recognition and Expense Matching

Covers revenue recognition criteria, long-term contract methods, and expense capitalisation rules. Highlights how accounting choices affect reported earnings quality.

Lesson 1 • Capital Budgeting Techniques

Covers NPV, IRR, payback period, and profitability index for project evaluation. Establishes the decision rules that link investment selection to shareholder value creation.

Lesson 2 • Corporate Governance and ESG

Introduces board structure, shareholder rights, agency conflicts, and ESG integration in governance. Prepares candidates to assess governance quality as a risk factor in analysis.

Lesson 3 • Cost of Capital Estimation

Teaches WACC construction, CAPM-based cost of equity, and cost of debt estimation. Provides the discount rate inputs required for all valuation models.

Lesson 4 • Dividends and Share Repurchases

Covers dividend policy theories, payout ratios, and buyback mechanics and signalling effects. Links payout decisions to capital allocation efficiency and investor preferences.

Lesson 1 • Relative Valuation Multiples

Covers P/E, P/B, P/S, EV/EBITDA, and their drivers and limitations. Provides the comparative framework used in equity screening and investment banking contexts.

Lesson 2 • Free Cash Flow and DCF Valuation

Teaches FCFF and FCFE derivation, terminal value estimation, and sensitivity analysis. Enables candidates to value firms independent of dividend policy.

Lesson 3 • Dividend Discount Models

Covers Gordon Growth Model, multi-stage DDM, and H-model for dividend-paying equities. Builds the foundational discounted cash flow logic extended in subsequent valuation sections.

Lesson 4 • Industry and Competitive Analysis

Teaches Porter's Five Forces, industry life cycle, and competitive positioning frameworks. Connects qualitative industry assessment to quantitative earnings forecast inputs.

Lesson 1 • Yield Measures and Spot Rates

Teaches yield to maturity, current yield, spot rates, and forward rate bootstrapping. Connects yield curve construction to bond valuation and relative value analysis.

Lesson 2 • Duration and Convexity

Covers Macaulay, modified, and effective duration plus convexity adjustment for price estimation. Provides the primary tools for measuring and hedging interest rate risk.

Lesson 3 • Credit Analysis and Ratings

Introduces credit rating frameworks, default probability, loss given default, and credit spreads. Enables candidates to assess issuer creditworthiness and price credit risk.

Lesson 4 • Structured and Securitised Products

Covers mortgage-backed securities, collateralised debt obligations, and prepayment risk modelling. Extends fixed income analysis to complex structured instruments.

Lesson 1 • Derivative Markets and Instruments

Covers exchange-traded versus OTC markets, forward commitments, and contingent claims taxonomy. Establishes the structural vocabulary for all subsequent derivative pricing topics.

Lesson 2 • Swap Valuation and Applications

Teaches interest rate swap pricing, currency swap mechanics, and equity swap structures. Demonstrates how swaps transform cash flow profiles for liability management.

Lesson 3 • Option Pricing and Strategies

Covers put-call parity, binomial model, Black-Scholes inputs, and the Greeks. Enables candidates to price options and construct protective and income-generating strategies.

Lesson 4 • Hedging Strategies and Risk Metrics

Covers delta hedging, minimum variance hedge ratios, and VaR for portfolio risk quantification. Integrates derivative tools into a comprehensive risk management framework.

Lesson 1 • Portfolio Theory and Efficient Frontier

Covers Markowitz mean-variance optimisation, correlation effects, and the efficient frontier. Establishes the theoretical basis for diversification and asset allocation decisions.

Lesson 2 • Asset Allocation and Multi-Asset Portfolios

Teaches strategic and tactical asset allocation, liability-relative approaches, and alternative asset roles. Enables candidates to construct diversified portfolios across equity, fixed income, and alternatives.

Lesson 3 • Portfolio Performance Evaluation

Covers Sharpe, Treynor, Jensen's alpha, and information ratio for risk-adjusted performance attribution. Closes the portfolio management cycle by linking outcomes to investment decisions.

Lesson 4 • Capital Market Theory and CAPM

Teaches the capital market line, security market line, beta estimation, and CAPM applications. Connects systematic risk measurement to required return and asset pricing.