Statistics

When individuals and institutions address their investing (lending) or financing (borrowing) needs, they are driven by two motivating factors: (1) to maximize return, and (2) to minimize risk. Statistical analysis is essentially a toolkit that enables us to evaluate properties of financial data series in order to estimate both risk and return, and thus make better financial decisions.
In this section, you will cover key definitions and techniques in the fields of probability and statistics, and learn (or be reminded) how we can apply these tools to analyze data and make intelligent predictions about possible future outcomes.

By the end of this module you will be able to:

• Evaluate financial data series to estimate risk and return
• Use statistics to make predictions about possible future outcomes