Séquence MOOC

Yale University: Critical Elements of the

Financial Infrastructure

Semaine 1

Résumé
Basic principles of Finance and Risk management.

First of all I have learned about the capital asset pricing model. The CAPM explains the links
between risk and the expected return. It is often used in pricing securities.

ri= Risk
rf= Risk free rate
rm= expected return
βi = security rate

I have also learned about diversification. According to Robert Schiller diversification is when
“the more different kinds of assets you can put in, the lower you can get the standard
deviation of your return.”

Insurance is at first a field that doesn’t seem to be related to finance. Insurance comes from
ancient Rome : people used to give their life as insurance to pay their gambling depts. The
concept is quite the same in finance.
Professor Robert Schiller also invited Hank Maurice Greenberg, one of the last CEO of AIG,
an insurance company. This firm was deeply impacted by the 2008 crisis. He explains how
the crisis crushed is lifetime work and shows how he developed risk management at that time.

Preuve validation : Voir page finale

Estimation du temps de travail : 2h de cours. 30 minutes pour répondre au QCM.

2h30 de travail.
Semaine 2

Résumé
Efficient Markets versus Behavioral Finance.

During this course we will learn about two main concepts which are less theoretical than
those introduced during the first week.

The first one is Efficient Markets. This concept has been introduced by Eugene Fema, who
won the Novel Price of Economics with Robert Schiller in 2013, and presents markets as
perfects. According to Professor Fema, the markets take into account all the objective
informations and regulates the prices automatically.

However, we can see that there is many other impacts on market prices that are maybe more
subjective. For the past 20 years, Robert Schiller explained that psychology should be used in
finance to analyse the market. The main reason is that people can not be considered as
rational, and we need behavioral finance to understand how they will act and the effects of
those actions on the market.
Preuve validation : Voir page finale

Estimation du temps de travail : 2h30 (cours+QCM)

Semaine 3

Résumé
Introduction and Theory of Debt.

First we wil talk about interest rates. The reasons that those rates are around 3% to 5% each
year is due to the speed of technological improvement. When we talk about debt, it is normal
to have some interest rate because money is lend on a period but the value of this money can
fluctuate also.

Investing in shares of a company is the opposite of dilution and also creates debts for the
company. Robert Schiller also explained what the shares market is and how it works. First
when you buy an important amount of shares, you have to know the total number of shares
provided by the company. Dividends also pay shareholders at the end of the economic year,
when the results of the firm allow it. Finally, if a firm needs some investment they will issue
more shares, and if they want to take back the leadership on the firm, they will buy back the
shares to shareholders.

Preuve validation : Voir page finale

 Estimation du temps de travail : 3h00 (cours+QCM)

Semaine 4

Résumé
Real Estate, Regulation and Enterprise.

Real estate is a form of ownership that we find in every country the world. We could arguee
that governments own the lands thanks to rules, but the citizen personally own and defend
their territories or their rights. They have some personal goods and they are free to trade
them if they want to.

Regulation is commonly imposed by governments. However their are some non-

governemental agencies such as FASB that accounts standards which must be respected.
There are also some community standars imposed by the group of by “The Board of
Directors” in a company.

Preuve validation : Voir page finale

Estimation du temps de travail : 3h00(cours+QCM)

Semaine 5

Résumé
Forward Futures and Option Markets

Preuve validation : Voir page finale

Estimation du temps de travail : 3h30 (cours+QCM)

Semaine 6

Résumé

Preuve validation : Voir page finale

Estimation du temps de travail : 2h10 (cours+QCM)

Total intermédiaire : 16h10 de travail personnel.

J’ai fini le MOOC mais je n’ai pas estimé précisément mon temps travail sur les 3 dernières
semaines… Je pense que j’ai dû passer en tout près de 25h sur ce MOOC, sans compter le
travail sur le rapport.
Résultats

Bilan
Cet électif de finance de marché a vraiment surpassé mes attentes. Le cours sur la
mondialisation m’a permis d’aborder la finance avec un autre regard, plus global, plus
détaillé. J’ai vraiment apprécié cette entrée en matière.
Ensuite j’aimerai remercier tout particulièrement Monsieur Heinrisch pour son cours de
maths financière. C’était clair, il était à l’écoute des élèves et nous a donné un bon volume de
travail. Il serait intéressant de proposer un électif transversal en maths financière en deuxième
année pour aller plus loin.

Enfin le MOOC était des plus clair et des plus intéressants : Robert Schiller donne goût à la
finance. Comme en début d’année avec le MOOC sur la gestion de projet, je trouve que ce
système de cours est vraiment propice à la connaissance. Je me suis par exemple rajouté sur
le MOOC Financial Engineering and Risk Management Part I de l’Université de Columbia.
J’ai choisi de travailler les cours qui m’interessaient le plus comme la partie “Pricing in the
Multi-Period Binomial Model”.

Résultat MOOC Financial Engineering Part I