Online Investment Analysis Graduate Certificate

Designed for professionals already working in, or seeking positions in, investment research, risk management, security selection, and portfolio management, the online Graduate Certificate in Investment Analysis at Boston University’s Metropolitan College provides in-depth knowledge of investment strategies, asset valuation, and investment management. Graduates of the program will be prepared to excel at a variety of careers in finance involving analysis and valuation of financial assets as well as risk management.

Students will study the overall investment process as well as the key elements involved, such as asset allocation and security selection. They will obtain basic understanding of debt, equity, and derivatives securities such as options and futures contracts. Students will also learn about services provided by mutual funds and be able to construct portfolios with different risk levels.

The certificate in Investment Analysis provides students with an in-depth understanding of systematic and firm-specific risks, and how to reduce firm-specific risk by combining different securities in a portfolio. Additionally, students will study the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) concept; be able to calculate bond prices, accrued interest, promised yields, and realized yields; and understand active bond portfolio management. Moreover, students will learn how to value a firm using constant growth or multistage dividend discount models, financial statements, and financial ratio analysis.

Students who complete the Graduate Certificate in Investment Analysis will be able to demonstrate:

• Understanding of the overall investment process and the key elements involved in the investment process, such as asset allocation and security selection.
• Basic understanding of debt, equity, and derivatives securities.
• Basic understanding of options and futures contracts.
• Basic understanding of the services provided by mutual funds, and the ability to identify sources of information on investment companies.
• The ability to construct portfolios of different risk levels, given information about risk free rates and returns on risky assets.
• Full understanding of systematic and firm-specific risk, and how one can reduce the amount of firm-specific risk in the portfolio by combining securities with differing patterns of returns.
• Insight on the concept and usage of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM).
• Experience with the calculation of bond prices including accrued interest, promised yields, and realized yields.
• Competence with active bond portfolio management.
• Basic understanding of some of the macroeconomic factors that affect security prices.
• Familiarity with the roles of fiscal and monetary policy in influencing interest rates and security prices.
• The ability to value a firm using either a constant growth or multistage dividend discount model and the price/earnings ratio model; the ability to analyze a firm using the basic financial statements to perform ratio analysis.
• The skills to calculate potential profits resulting from various option trading strategies and to formulate portfolio management strategies to modify the risk-return attributes of the portfolio; the skills to calculate option prices in a two-state world (via a simplified binomial model).
• Comprehension of market timing, timing performance measures, and the problems that timing causes in performance measurement.