Financial Markets
Phase 1 of the quantitative learning path. Start here — these articles build the foundational mental models you need before touching any strategy, model, or tool.
31 articles ~2.7 h
Core Concepts
- What Is a Stock? Understanding Equity Ownership What is equity, and what does owning a share mean?
- What Is a Bond? Understanding Fixed Income Securities The mechanics of lending: coupons, face value, yield
- What Is a Derivative? Forwards, Futures, Options, and Swaps Forwards, futures, swaps, and the logic of derivatives
- Financial Instruments: Stocks, Bonds, Derivatives, and Cash Mapping the full landscape of instruments
Price Formation and Microstructure
- Supply, Demand, and Price Formation How prices emerge from buyer/seller competition
- Order Types: Market Orders, Limit Orders, and Execution Market orders, limit orders, and how fills work
- What Is an Order Book? How Buyers and Sellers Meet The live record of bids and asks; reading depth and spread
- What Is the Stock Market? How Equity Trading Actually Works Exchanges, market participants, indexes, and how equity trading works
Interest Rates, Inflation, and Central Banks
- Interest Rates and the Role of Central Banks How central banks control rates and influence the economy
- Inflation: What It Is and Why It Matters Why prices rise over time and what central banks do about it
- Time Value of Money: Present Value, Future Value, and Discounting Why a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow
Risk and Return
- Opportunity Cost, Risk-Free Rate, and the Risk-Return Tradeoff The relationship between risk and compensation
- Capital Asset Pricing Model: Systematic Risk and Beta The CAPM model and measuring market risk
- Risk Management: Volatility, VaR, and Position Sizing Volatility, VaR, and how institutions manage risk
- Credit Risk and Ratings: Understanding Default Risk Default probability, credit ratings, and spread
Portfolio Theory
- Portfolio Theory: Diversification and the Efficient Frontier Diversification, correlation, and the efficient frontier
- Diversification: Reducing Risk Through Asset Allocation How to actually reduce portfolio risk
Markets and Instruments
- Primary Markets vs. Secondary Markets: Where Securities Trade IPOs vs. ongoing trading; where new vs. existing shares trade
- Company Valuation: DCF, Multiples, and Intrinsic Value How to think about what a company is worth
- ETFs, Mutual Funds, and Investment Funds Pooled investment vehicles and why they matter
- Market Regimes: Bull Markets, Bear Markets, and Crashes How market conditions change character
Fixed Income
Foreign Exchange
Options
Market Efficiency and Behavior
- Market Efficiency Hypothesis: Can You Beat the Market? The efficient market hypothesis and what it means for trading
- Market Anomalies: Patterns That Challenge Market Efficiency Known patterns that challenge the EMH
- Behavioral Finance: Why Investors Make Predictable Mistakes How human psychology distorts financial decisions