Hi guys, and welcome back to the channel. As I asked in the last article, if you want to know about finance courses other than the top 5, many of you commented that this is the article you would like to watch. So, here we are with the top 5 finance courses, as well as skills that you should learn in 2024.

Introduction to Finance Courses

In this article, I not only want to share the names and details of those 5 courses, but, in fact, I want to make you capable enough so that, if you want to go into any field tomorrow and want to learn its skills, you can find them on the right websites. But we’ll talk about that towards the end of the article.

Course 1: Financial Modeling

Let’s start with our first course, which will teach you the skill of financial modeling. It is the most important skill in the field of finance. There are many big institutes that offer quite expensive courses for it. For example, the Corporate Finance Institute or the Financial Modeling Institute, their courses are quite expensive.

If you want to learn financial modeling at a basic level, just want to see the basics, then there are two free courses that I would recommend. The first course is available on the Udemy website. You can note down its name, or you will also find the link in the description. This course is a one-hour course.

The second course is available on the eTrainerBox website. It’s also a free course. This one is a six-hour course. In both cases, you just need to sign up, and then you will have access to the entire course content.

After this point, if you want to learn more about financial modeling, I would recommend a website that was recommended by a batchmate from IIM Ahmedabad. He was a master in finance. The name of this website is A Simple Model.

When you go to the homepage of this website, you will see an option on the left-hand side for Financial Analyst Fundamentals. Click on it, and then scroll down a bit. Here, you will find many lessons. Let me take the example of the first lesson: “Excel for Models.” If you open it, you will see, you can watch videos in it. The top four sessions under this are freely accessible, and the subsequent sessions are locked.

But if you come back to the lesson plan, you can see that for each lesson, the top four videos are available within it. And for many lessons, there are five videos, with the fifth one being a quiz. This means that you can learn financial modeling by freely accessing many resources on this website. It will give you a very good idea.

This is one of the best resources. If you feel that you want to learn more, then you can take their subscription for $10 per month. That is completely optional, but I would recommend that even without it, you will learn a lot about financial modeling.

Course 2: Valuation and Corporate Finance

Another skill, which is very important in the field of finance, is called valuation and corporate finance. If you ask anyone in the entire industry where to learn this skill, everyone will recommend you the same source, which is Professor Aswath Damodaran. Professor Aswath Damodaran teaches at NYU, and he has many resources available.

For example, he has his own website, and he also has books. But I would recommend a very simple resource to learn this skill, which is his YouTube videos. Just a few days ago, I was talking to one of my batchmates who, despite graduating from IIM, was watching this video series because he wanted to understand the concept of valuation. This shows how famous his videos are, and people still use them.

Basically, when Professor Damodaran teaches classes at NYU, whether it’s on valuation or corporate finance, those classes are recorded, and then they are regularly added to playlists. The good news is that he has just started corporate finance and valuation classes at the end of January. I will add the link to these videos in the description. As soon as you click on it, the entire playlist will open, and you can access them one by one.

If you don’t want to follow along with his NYU classes and want to cover everything before them, you can watch previous playlists from 2023 or 2022.

Course 3: Financial Statements and Accounting

The third skill is financial statements and accounting. In the field of finance, you don’t need to be able to create a balance sheet, profit and loss statement, and cash flow statement. If you know how to read and analyze these financial statements, you will be eligible for many roles.

When we are taught concepts of accounting or financial management in IIMs, no one tells us how to create financial statements from a base level. Instead, our major role is to be able to make decisions by looking at those financial statements, analyzing them, and making important decisions for the company.

So, to learn this skill, which resource can help you? First, you can check out PwC’s PDF titled “Basic Understanding of Companies Financial Statements.” This PDF is only 35 pages, simple and visually oriented.

To be honest, when I found this resource, I thought if any person reads these 35 pages properly, they will get to know how financial statements look and how to read them. But I also understand that many of you may come from a non-finance background and might not have any knowledge about financial statements.

I’ll recommend a resource where they will explain to you visually how to read financial statements. This is a free course offered by CFI, which is the Corporate Finance Institute. It’s a free and introductory course titled “Reading Financial Statements.” To be honest, on the Corporate Finance Institute website, you can find many free courses, and among them, this is one of the best.

When you play the videos of this course, they will actually explain and demonstrate to you how to read a financial statement.

Course 4: Trading and Stock Markets

Let’s move on to our fourth skill, which many people are interested in, and that is trading and stock markets. For this, I gathered feedback from many websites, checked numerous Reddit forums, and found a resource that was recommended by many people. It is a popular resource called Zerodha Varsity.

This is a mind-blowing course that should be a starting point for anyone who wants to get into trading or even understand financial markets. This is a completely free resource, openly accessible, meaning anyone can check it out without the need for signing in or logging in.

On Zerodha Varsity, you will find three sections: Modules, Videos, and Certified. Inside the modules, all these concepts will be explained in text format. If you only want to do a limited number of modules, then modules 1, 2, 3, and 11 are the ones that you should definitely go through.

Instead of reading these modules in text format, you can also understand them through videos. For example, if you click on Module 1, you can see that a total of 10 videos are given. If you go to the Videos section and click on the first module, you’ll see that there are 10 chapters here. The concepts are the same, but they are presented in video format.

In addition, there is an optional course covered under the Certified section. Based on modules 1, 2, 3, and 11, 100 questions will be asked, which will be MCQs, and you need to attempt them in 100 minutes. If you score more than 65%, you will be issued a certificate, and there is a fee of 250 rupees to apply for it.

So, again, this is entirely optional if you want to get certified by Zerodha Varsity. I would recommend that whether you want to get certified or not, at least go through those four modules.

Course 5: Financial Analytics and Data Analytics

Let’s move on to our final skill, which is financial analytics and data analytics. In most finance roles, it is essential to analyze data to make decisions. Data analytics is a skill that you should learn. For this, there are two levels of courses, both offered by the same university.

The first course is a beginner-level course, and the second is an intermediate-level course. You can find both courses on the Coursera website. The name of the first course is “Financial Analysis of Scenarios and Decisions.” The second course, which is an intermediate-level course, is called “Applying Data Analytics in Finance.”

This course is a bit tough. If you check its syllabus, it’s somewhat complicated. The level of analytics is higher, and the models you need to learn are a bit challenging. I would recommend if you want to learn the basics, simply go for the first one; it will be sufficient for you.

Secret Resource

So, we have discussed the five skills and their resources. I will share a secret website with you that I am definitely sure will help you. This website is “LinkedIn Job Description Template.” LinkedIn has created this website for recruiters. If they want to hire for any position, they can see what skills they should look for and what interview questions they should ask. This way, you can practice for any role and see what skills are required. Personally, I found this to be a very useful resource. Try it once and see.

Final Request

Apart from this, my final request is that you let me know the reason you read this article, whether it’s for internships, courses, scholarships, MBA, or whatever your reason is for reading articles on our website. Please comment, as that will help me understand what type of articles I should make in the future.

I truly hope that this information helps you.