Develop your financial insight through investing classes that explain portfolio management and market behavior. You’ll gain tools to make informed decisions and plan for sustainable growth.
Gain a comprehensive understanding of stock investing, valuation, and stock movements in this course. Learn about essential valuation techniques, financial statements, and the fundamentals of stock investing, as well as the factors that influence stock prices and how to analyze them.
Master Excel, review corporate finance, and build a valuation model on a public company. Gain basic and intermediate Excel skills and learn how to read financial statements, build valuations, and predict market trends.
Join our financial modeling class to learn essential finance and accounting concepts, build a discounted cash flow (DCF) model in Excel, acquire advanced Excel skills, explore corporate finance and valuation, and create a financial model on a real company. This hands-on course will teach you practical financial skills.
In its simplest form, investing is when you buy an asset at a low price and sell it at a higher price. The money you make selling at a higher price is called a return on your investment, also known as a capital gain. Earning returns by selling assets for a profit—or realizing your capital gains—is one way to make money investing. Your investments can also increase in value between buying and selling, and this is known as appreciation.
You can invest in many ways (either directly or indirectly), like using money to start a business or purchasing real estate to generate rental income or resell it later at a higher price. Risk is inherently part of investing, with low risk generally meaning lower returns, while higher risk is usually where you’ll see higher returns (although there’s no guarantee). Certificates of Deposit (CDs) are an example of a low-risk investment, while bonds, fixed-income instruments, stocks, and equities are regarded as riskier. Commodities and derivatives are generally considered some of the riskiest investments.
There are two ways to start investing: do-it-yourself (DIY) or professional management. DIY investing is sometimes called self-directed investing, and requires a fair amount of education, skill, time commitment, and the ability to control one’s emotions. Professional money management generally involves wealth managers looking after your investments. While professional money management is more expensive than managing money on your own, it offers greater convenience by delegating research, investment decision-making, and trading to an expert.
Whether you’re looking to learn to invest on your own or want to become a professional whom beginners seek out, you can learn everything you need to know in an investing class.
Investment training courses are designed to prepare you for a career in asset management, financial planning, stock trading, and portfolio strategy, equipping you with the skills to make informed investment decisions and optimize economic growth. But you can also use investment training to improve your own financial status, eliminate debt, or save for retirement. Becoming an investing expert can lead to passive income generation, helping you grow your wealth with minimal effort. Whether you invest through stocks and bonds, property, or various accounts like IRAs, Roth IRAs, and HYSAs, there are numerous ways you can improve your finances.
Investing can seem like a complicated skill and is often something that many struggle to master. According to the 2022 Investopedia Financial Literacy Survey, 57% of U.S. adults are invested, but just one in three say they have advanced investing knowledge. While there are many topics, tools, procedures, and strategies involved in investing, most entry-level investing classes will stick to establishing the basics. Outlined below are some of the most fundamental subjects you’ll need to master to become an expert investor, but keep in mind that there’s much more to learn beyond this list. The deeper you go into investing, the more strategies and skills you will develop.
Financial markets are any place or system that allows the trade of financial instruments, including bonds, equities, various international currencies, and derivatives. Most investing classes will provide a crash course in the fundamentals of financial markets and how they facilitate the interaction between those needing capital and those with capital to invest.
Strategic analysis involves researching and evaluating a security or industry to predict its future performance and determine its suitability for a specific investor. It may also involve evaluating or creating a financial strategy. An investing training will typically cover the types of investment analysis including bottom-up, top-down, fundamental, and technical.
Investing is about allocating resources and capital to chosen risks. Risk management processes and tools result in a higher chance of a preferred outcome, like more value for your portfolio. Portfolio Managers need to be familiar with risk management to improve the portfolio’s risk-return outcome, manage the company’s enterprise risk issues, evaluate the companies’ risks, and understand how those companies are addressing them.
Trading is different from investing and primarily focuses on short-term movements in markets. A trading platform is a software system used to trade securities. Trading platforms let investors open, close, and manage market positions through a virtual financial intermediary like an online broker. Brokers frequently offer these online trading platforms for free or at a discount in exchange for maintaining a funded account and/or making a specified number of trades per month. The best trading platforms offer a mix of robust features and low fees. An investing class will teach you what to look for in a trading platform and the pros and cons to keep in mind.
Investing can teach you valuable lessons in patience. Medium or long-term investors are not looking to earn quick portfolio returns; they’re willing to ride out the highs and lows to secure a better position in the future. It can be tempting to cash in when something is doing well or to give it up when you’ve lost out. Successful trading requires patience while you stick to your strategy, regardless of what happens.
Investing is a great hobby and can help individuals offset the cost of high-quality financial advice and management, but mastering the subject may not come easily. Learning investing can be challenging for a variety of reasons. The amount of technical information, finding reliable resources, and understanding the reactionary market are three of the major factors that contribute to the level of difficulty. Additionally, because investing itself takes patience and longevity, mastering it does as well. Watching the market and making strategic decisions takes time to both learn and do, so having patience and perseverance can impact how easy or difficult it is to master investing.
In the investing world, two questions matter most: Is this stock cheap when you compare the stock price to the assets of the underlying corporation? and, Do the stocks have adequate resources to ride out low periods and survive long enough to thrive again? Answering those two questions often isn’t as straightforward as you would think. Risk management, research, and market analysis are perhaps the most difficult topics to master when studying investing, but, as previously mentioned, soft skills like patience and perseverance are equally crucial.
Due to its multifaceted nature, mastering investing can take more time than you might think. Most experts say it takes anywhere between one and five years to understand the stock market, depending on several factors that have been listed above. Just like an investing strategy, investing education is a long game. And, while it may take more than a year to become confident in all things investing, you can usually gain familiarity with the basics (like the stock market and entry-level trading practices) within a few months. Learning about investing can have a direct impact on your financial success, so becoming an expert is still worthwhile, whether it takes you a few months or several years.
There are many factors to consider when answering this question. Firstly, you’ll need to decide what learning environment is best suited for you. Do you excel in a collaborative environment that allows you to interact with your peers and receive instant feedback from your instructor? Or, do you prefer a more solitary learning environment, perhaps one where you can learn at your own speed?
You’ll also need to decide how much time you can commit to your education and what level of flexibility your schedule requires. Are you looking to dive deeply into an intensive program? Do you work full-time and require your classes to be scheduled for evening and weekend hours?
In-person classes offer face-to-face interaction with your fellow students and your expert instructor. This collaborative environment is available for both full-time and part-time classes and provides structure and accountability, two things that can help you succeed. Online courses may lack this in-person interaction, but they make up for it with increased flexibility. Live virtual courses still offer instant feedback from your instructor and interactions with other students, while on-demand virtual training allows for the most flexibility since you can decide where and when you learn.
There are several software programs and tools that will help you with investing. Excel is a great basic program to start with. Excel spreadsheets can keep track of investments and calculate things like performance and degree of volatility, the difference between an asset’s current price minus its entry price, the percentage return on an asset, and profit and loss. One particularly helpful Excel feature is its ability to calculate standard deviation, a complex formula that assesses risk.
Having an understanding of at least one Portfolio Management System (PMS) is also helpful alongside investing. Also known as wealth management software, a PMS tracks and manages investor portfolios. These systems are used by investment professionals to build, track, and manage their clients’ investment portfolios. Investment portfolio management software consists of communication tools to facilitate client-investor communication and is designed to be used by investors, financial advisors, and their clients. If you plan to turn investing into a career, you’ll definitely want to become familiar with a PMS.
There are other subjects worth pursuing as well. Brushing up on your math skills can’t hurt (accounting, calculus, and business math), and studying subjects like computer science or economics can be extremely beneficial as well. It’s best to list out the areas of investing that may be difficult for you, and from there, you can pinpoint various subjects that can help you strengthen those skills.
The Atlanta financial market is booming and is also increasingly diversifying. Atlanta’s FinTech sector is one of the top in the world and continues to attract leading investment firms that are keen to invest in startups. In 2022, about 70% of all global credit, debit, and gift card “swipes” were processed through a Georgia company, according to the Metro Atlanta Chamber, with more than 160 FinTech services companies located in the state. The city’s largest FinTech companies include Global Payments Inc, which employs 4,500 people locally and posts $8.25 billion in revenue; Fiserv Inc., which has 4,000 employees in Atlanta; Equifax, which has 3,000 employees in Atlanta; NCR Corp., which has 3,000 employees locally and U.S. Bank/Elavon, which employs 1,296 people in Atlanta, according to data from the Atlanta Business Journal.
The Atlanta region is home to Georgia Tech, one of the best schools in the country for computer science and engineering degrees, which is, in part, why the city is known as a world-class hub for technology design, implementation, and innovation. As one of the fastest-growing high-tech urban centers in the nation, Atlanta experienced 15% job growth in technology jobs in 2021, thanks to an increase of 146 new tech businesses. The tech industry relies heavily on funding and investing, making it an ideal industry for you to personally invest in or find work as an investor.
According to Redfin, Atlanta home prices are up 11.7% compared to 2023, selling for a median price of $430,000. It isn’t hard to see why: Atlanta boasts numerous booming industries that are drawing folks from across the nation to call it home. Compared to other major metropolitan areas (think L.A., San Francisco, New York, or Chicago), Atlanta’s real estate market remains relatively affordable. This affordability, combined with the city’s economic strength and growing population, creates a conducive environment for real estate investment.
Atlanta’s healthcare and medical technology category is experiencing rapid growth, and despite being a mature industry, it’s expanding with the help of recent medical innovations. It’s also home to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a growing number of non-governmental agencies and businesses responsible for responding to humanitarian crises. The healthcare industry often employs skilled investors in Financial Analyst roles, where they can collect data, conduct analyses of spending, and monitor ongoing market changes and fluctuations.
Investing can lead to a vibrant and successful career in a variety of industries. There are several roles you could pursue, depending on your level of experience. Listed below are a few of the most common positions you’ll see listed, as well as a brief description of what each does and how much you can expect to be compensated.
An Investment Advisor, also referred to as a stockbroker, has a government registration allowing them to choose, manage, and recommend investments for clients. Unlike other financial advisors who may not be regulated, Investment Advisors are regulated by their state or the SEC (depending on how much money they manage) and can also offer services like retirement planning. The average salary of an Investment Advisor in Atlanta is $77,000-$96,000, with senior-level advisors earning well over six figures.
Investment Analysts are hired by brokerage firms, investment advisors, and mutual fund companies to prepare investment research for multiple purposes. They are trained to evaluate financial and investment information, typically for the purpose of making buy, sell, and hold recommendations for securities. Buy-Side Analysts identify investment opportunities for their firm, while Sell-Side Equity Analysts work for big investment banks and issue buy, sell, and hold recommendations and company-specific research. You can expect to make $82,000-$116,000 in this role in Atlanta.
Revenue Managers oversee the revenue data and analytics for various businesses and industries. They use databases to collect, store, organize, and process data that relates to a company’s financial health, and also use technology systems to forecast revenue that a company may earn by making strategic decisions about pricing and services. On average, Revenue Managers make $107,000-$155,000 in Atlanta.
Portfolio Management Directors lead the change in an organization or business. They typically manage an immediate team of portfolio officers but can be responsible for scores of other people within the business. A Portfolio Management Director is adept at the latest portfolio management practices and also knows how to adapt to suit the culture and environment of the business. Salaries for this role can vary depending on the amount and types of portfolios you manage, but typically range between $120,000 and $250,000.
Held live online or in-person in New York City, this course from NYIM Training will teach you the fundamentals of stocks and bonds by discussing what moves stock prices and how stocks are valued by investors. You’ll learn the essentials of valuation (like P/E ratios and DCF analysis), financial statements, and fundamentals of stock investing. You’ll also analyze recent earnings releases and valuation multiples of companies like Google and Apple to provide a framework for fundamental investment research. NYIM Training classes boast small sizes, expert instructors, setup assistance, and a free retake should you wish to revisit the content.
This course from Noble Desktop will teach you the essentials of valuation, financial statements, and stock investing. It is offered in person in New York City or in a live online format. The course covers topics like P/E ratios and DCF analysis, as well as recent earnings releases and valuation multiples of companies such as Google and Apple. You’ll develop a sound understanding of how financial markets work using the same strategies and tactics as investors such as Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. This course comes with setup assistance, small class sizes for more individualized learning, and a free retake, should you wish to revisit the content later. Once you’ve completed the course, you’ll receive a certificate that can be added to your resume, LinkedIn, or online portfolio.
Noble Desktop also offers a Financial Analyst Training Program. In this course, students learn core Excel skills, including functions, formulas, and PivotTables. They also learn advanced Excel techniques for financial modeling, such as Goal Seek and cash flow protection tools. In addition, the class covers accounting, corporate finance, and valuation, with topics like DCF modeling techniques, financial statement analysis, and corporate valuation principles. Students also learn about financial modeling, building an integrated 3-statement financial model, reviewing company presentations and financial reports, and using valuation principles.
Another Noble option is the Financial Accounting Bootcamp. This is a short course where students learn about financial accounting and financial statements, which includes topics like cash versus accrual accounting, income statement line items, and financial metrics, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. They will also gain an understanding of how financial statements tie together. Many different intermediate financial accounting principles are also covered, such as advanced income statement processes, handling unusual items and EPs, working with deferred taxes and tax journal entries, managing intercompany investments, and understanding how debt accounting works.
If you already know a bit about investing and want to level up in data analytics, Noble’s Python for Data Science Bootcamp is the perfect place to learn coding skills that can enhance your existing skill set. With beginner-friendly training that includes skills-based projects, you don’t need any knowledge of coding to master skills like analytics and visualization. In addition to giving real-world experience, these projects will also help you develop compelling material for inclusion in your professional portfolio. Whenever you get stumped, you can fall back on your mentor, an expert who meets with you one-on-one throughout the course to offer support and career guidance. After completing this program, you can level up even further by participating in the Python for Finance Bootcamp.
If you’re looking to offer in-person or online training to your office or team, Noble Desktop can help. They offer a variety of corporate training programs, including in social media marketing. You can order vouchers in bulk at a discount, choose which courses are available to employees, and even let your employees choose their own schedule. Plus, you can choose to have your training hosted at a location of your choosing, live online, or at Noble Desktop’s Manhattan office.
With a top-notch customizable curriculum and instructors who are experts in their industries, Noble Desktop’s corporate training is designed to cater to your business or organization’s needs. For more information or to schedule a free consultation, you can reach out to Noble Desktop at corporate@nobledesktop.com.