Not happy about the course. Very very general information. This can be obtained through any internet reading and doesn't require a purchase of the course. 79 dollars is not peanuts for many countries. The lecturers often refer to the videos which are not part of this course. Examples: PPP valuation has not been part of lectures, but is referred to. Maturity and duration of the bond comparison with the glass of water is referred to, but was not part of the course. For the money - we are getting some shorter version of a bigger course. Not satisfied at all. Just finished all the tests and passed, but not happy. Do not recommend to anyone and surely will not buy the next course.

Thoroughly enjoyed the course. Very well thought out and presented in an informative and very engaging manner. Brought to life many subjects I was aware of but lacked in depth understanding.

Mr. Michel is really an amazing teacher! His lectures are vivic and greatly attracts my attention. I hope to take more of his classes because I've Learned more than I nomally can do in a short class

The course is nicely paced throughout the four weeks. Love that the videos / content are "bite-sized" making it eas to digest admist a busy work schedule. Looking forward to the next course!

I am disappointed in the quality of the lectures in this course. They're too summarized -- too quick-- and they lack the thoroughness required to accurately convey the intuition the student needs to comprehend the lessons taught. When I have to spend a significant number of hours watching lectures on YouTube to compensate for the poor quality lectures offered in "Understand Financial Markets", I am left wondering why I enrolled in the specialization. I think Coursera needs to have a conversation with the professors at Geneva University about the need for prerequisites before allowing students to enroll in this specialization.

Inconsistent course content, presenters hop between topics, complete lack of definitions, absense of content structure. Moreover, the presentation style is very boring. One thing is for sure - avoid attending finance at university of Geneva by all costs.

Course was taught by people who gave no indication they had ever bought a security. They read flatly from the teleprompter and rarely looked at their audience. Very disconcerting and not conducive to trusting what is being said.

Beware - will make you upgrade to complete quizzes (and pay) - should definitely be much more upfront about this from the beginning.

Seems like very poor tactics on their behalf.

Very disappointed by this course. Concepts are explained very poorly, pop-up questions in the videos are a joke.

The teachers are really great!

So far I have studied, I have found that the teachers have worked hard to present the course beautifully and lucidly. Dr. Michel Girardin is just awesome.

I liked an earlier course by the University of Geneva (International Organization Management) - which I completed with distinction. I'm enjoying this course very much, as well.

I'm not from the finance background, rather from a completely different field - Medicine. These are probably my first true lessons in finance. Really great.

By profession, I'm a teacher (junior faculty) and I try to make the classes enjoyable for the medical students here. In this course, my additional gain is to experience the art of teaching - I was amazed by the walking lecture by Dr. Michel Girardin.

Thank you very much, respected teachers.

Thanks a lot to the University of Geneva and to Coursera.

Excellent course. If there is one thing I'd recommend you do, it is to keep updating the examples and data used. Some of the data used in the course I just took were from 2013. But this does not impact on the usefulness of the course--just distracts from the fact that what we are learning was applicable as much in 2013 as it is now. I have spent 30 years assessing investments for Official Development Assistance (ODA) sources of funding or public sector funding...I needed a course just like this (and more like this) to get on the steep learning curve for understanding and hopefully designing investments using private sector, bonds and "blended" sources of funding. Thank you.

The course gives a comprehensive overview of financial markets including bonds, equities, real estate, gold, emerging markets and hedge funds. It also covers key drivers of financial markets such as inflation, central bank policy, foreign currencies and business cycles. It covers key basic concepts in finance such as bond yield, duration, market valuation, discounted cash flows, net present value and purchase power parity. Michel is a brilliant teacher with a sense of humor! The only improvement point would be to add videos about the time value of money and giving more of an introduction before jumping into valuation of equities!

This specialization is great! I really enjoyed discovering the basics of financial markets through the internet, it's a (not so) new way of learning, and it was completely adapted to my learning methodology. This way of teaching and transmitting informations is very intuitive, so you don't get all the inconvenient of a normal class. But my opinion might be biased, as I am currently studying Economics at the University of Geneva, and therefore Dr. Girardin Is my teacher every week!

It's strange to see your teacher face to face Monday morning, and later on your computer when studying!

Can't wait to complete the next ones!

This was a fantastic course that give the student a good understanding of the concepts in which asset investors use on a daily basis. Michel is in my opinion a world class lecturer in which he explains topics so clearly and in few words. Its very obvious he loves what he does and is very good at it. I would recommend this course to anyone who has an interest in financial markets and plans to take an active role in managing the assets they own; whether it be cash in the bank, the house you live in, your retirement fund or your child's college fund.

Fantastic course. Videos are clear, informative, have a good mix of theoretical and real-world examples and Michel Girardin (one of the lecturers) has really good, original examples to explain concepts and also keep one entertained (online courses with hours of financial theory can be tough in this regard sometimes!). Also, the video content is interspersed with mini quizzes (generally not graded) which help keep your attention and test learning. Overall very, very pleased - definitely the best online course I've taken in years.

Very concise course in fundamental financial markets, absolutely suitable for beginners. The workload of one week is reasonably low, most of videos are 10 minutes or so, sometimes slides goes maybe a little fast for beginners but you can always pause to have a better look at the slides. I like Michel the most, he is very well prepared with the materials and sometimes he will surprise you with some "experiments", and of course he will always amuse you by his charming smile.

I like this course very much , it provides us some introduction to the financial market. I completed this course on 15 February 2016. Highly recommended !

One the other hand, I feel proud because this is the first batch of this course offering and specifically related to investment management specialization. I'm committed to follow this specialization until completing the capstone project.

Thank you very much.

Chan

Excellent course to start learning portfolio management. Very high on concepts such as asset classes, alternative asset classes, hedge funds management, valuations, learning from clients, emerging markets etc. Lays a strong foundation for the other courses in the specialization. Lectures by UBS executives have a strong practical content. Would have liked it to be a little more quantitative, though.

In fact, no matter how much I search my head for words that express my happiness I can not find those words, but I want to say that dreams are beautiful and achieved in reality is difficult but it is not impossible. Today I got a certificate bearing the name of this university which I have always wished to visit. And study in it and you all the appreciation and respect for your wonderful effort

I really enjoyed this course. Each unit has many small videos so it is easy to break up. The lecturers attempt to make it interesting (though sometimes they think they're funnier than they are). Regardless, it covers quite a few topics in a way that's very easy to understand. Some of the quizzes do seem to require an advanced calculator, but I was able to use a simple one and kind of estimate.

Examples that are provided in the course make it easy to understand and to apply in the real world. I have learned a lot about financial markets and theirs relationships with economy. Now, I have better fundamental understanding of investment decisions. It is one of the wonderful learning experiences I have had in Coursera. Thank you for bringing the specialization in more effective ways.

The corse is very well organized. The concepts explained are basic, but foundamental to understand macro-investment decisions and they are explained in a very clear way: every concept is underpinned by a series of example from actual macroeconomic situations, which help to better grasps the theory.

Also the balance between the duration of the course and the theory explained is very good.

I have gained an exceptional understanding of the basic financial markets and the key principles of investment practices. The feedback from UBS professionals, although very short, was quite enlightening and helpful. I am sure ready to continue with this specialization and I will recommend it to many of my friends who are eager to know more about how financial markets work.

The course presents ( not in depth ) many key concepts of the Financial Markets. I think it gave ma a good understanding on how the market works without going too deep int the material. If you are not familiar with some of the material you might look for a more in depth explanation somewhere else but all together was a very interesting course well presented.

This course introduces broad fundamentals about almost all categories of investments, including the impacts of macro economy. If you have very limited financial or economy knowledge, this course is just for you! Also, the lecturers and professors in this course present very clearly. One of my favorite part is the lecture given by UBS experts.