Earn Your Master’s Degree and Meet the Growing Demand for Financial Analysts
Invest in your finance career with an online master’s in financial analysis from College for Financial Planning®—a Kaplan Company. The program is dedicated to the advanced study of financial analysis and to developing financial analysis professionals through higher learning and quality student experiences, focusing on critical thinking, ethics, and lifelong learning. Build the expertise to stay competitive in this expanding field.
Why Choose College for Financial Planning® for Your Master’s in Financial Analysis?
- Skills & Recognition: A master’s degree shows you have reached a high level of expertise. A graduate degree in financial analysis is immediately recognizable to both clients and firms.
- Deep Knowledge to Sit for the CFA® or CAIA® Exam: The program was created to prepare you with the deep understanding of financial analysis that is required for the CFA® examination process.
- After you successfully complete 15 credit hours, you will have access to Kaplan Schweser’s CFA® Essential Study Package to prepare for the CFA® exam. As a graduate, you will continue to have access to the Study Package to help you pursue all levels of the CFA® exam.
- In addition, a unique portion of the master’s degree includes some of the CAIA® Charter exam curriculum, helping you prepare for the CAIA® exam.
- Prior Learning Credit: If you hold a financial designation or license, or have successfully completed certain courses at the College for Financial Planning®, you may qualify for prior learning credit toward our master’s in financial analysis.
Topics Include
- Economic analysis utilized in investment decision making
- Financial statement analysis
- Quantitative methods and analysis beneficial to financial analysis
- The investment environment including financial markets, institutions, and the investing process
- Corporate finance
- Security analysis and valuation
- Alternative investments, derivatives, and risk management
- Advanced portfolio management
- Professional standards and ethics in the investments industry
Program Learning Objectives
Graduates should be able to:
- Know: Identify appropriate tools, techniques, and fiduciary responsibilities used in financial analysis in complex situations for firms and institutional and individual clients.
- Apply: Apply accounting, economic, and quantitative methods and analyses in financial analysis used in various client-based scenarios and situations.
- Relate: Relate the practice of portfolio management according to ethical standards.
- Critical Analysis and Evaluation: Synthesize a sophisticated level of critical evaluation and analysis to financial analysis scenarios and apply advanced techniques in security analysis, asset allocation, and portfolio management for a firm and/or client.
- Communicate: Prepare comprehensive written reports and effective presentations of financial analysis.
- Professional Practice: Employ ethical and professional standards when making financial analysis and recommendations, abiding by regulatory and legal guidelines.
- Lifelong Learning: Engage with the CFA Institute in being contemporary and adopting changes in the financial analysis industry, including related standards and regulations.
- Discovery: Engage in learning and adopting new thinking in financial analysis including such areas as valuation, corporate performance, and portfolio management as it may apply to contributing to a firm and/or advising clients on complex financial analysis situations.
Program Curriculum
You must complete 30 semester credits with a minimum 3.00 grade point average to graduate from the program.
Core Courses
3 credits
Prerequisite(s): None
This course covers financial statement analysis starting with the origin of financial data and uses of financial reporting. Topical coverage includes revenue recognition and income determination with in-depth analysis of the income statement. Coverage also includes applied financial statement investigation, including cause-of-change, common-size, and trend analyses.
3 credits
Prerequisite(s): ACCT545
Building on financial statement analysis tools and techniques covered in ACCT545, this course provides advanced analysis of the asset side of the balance sheet, including receivables, inventory, and long-lived assets. Additional coverage includes using financial information in making decisions associated with credit analysis, contracting, and valuation, as well as in-depth study of the sources and uses of cash as identified in the statement of cash flows (operations, investing, and financing).
3 credits
Prerequisite(s): None
This course explores economic issues relevant to financial analysis and investments. Topics include supply and demand, industry structure, central banking and monetary policy, fiscal policy and taxation, economic growth, interest rate determination, inflation, international trade, currency exchange, and economic decision-making.
3 credits
Prerequisites: None
This course studies the financial system, including financial institutions, instruments, and markets. Topical coverage includes time value of money, diversification, risk and return characteristics of securities, bonds, bond features, bond pricing, stocks, market efficiency, interest rate determination, and the term structure of interest rates.
3 credits
Prerequisites: None
This course covers the fundamentals of quantitative concepts and techniques, including descriptive statistics, probability distributions, sampling, hypothesis testing, correlation analysis, linear regression, and time-series models.
3 credits
Prerequisites: ACCT545, ACCT550, ECON535, FINA515 and FINA525
This course covers the advanced analysis of equity and debt securities, including the valuation of common stock, preferred stock, and various types of fixed-income instruments. Common stock topics include valuation techniques such as discounted cash flow analysis, price multiples, and the residual income model. Bond features and characteristics including time-to-maturity, types of coupons, callability, and conversion are covered. Other relevant topics covered are investing strategies, duration, convexity, and risks relevant to securities, including default, credit, interest rate, and reinvestment risk. Additional coverage includes behavioral finance, technical analysis, and the Efficient Market Hypothesis.
3 credits
Prerequisite(s): ACCT545, ACCT550, FINA515, FINA525, and ECON535
This course examines the financial structure of corporations with an emphasis on understanding financial statements, time value of money, cash flows, working capital management, capital structure, financing decisions, cost of capital, and capital budgeting techniques.
3 credits
Prerequisites: ACCT545, ACCT550, ECON535, FINA515, FINA525, and FINA565
This course explores derivatives, alternative investments and alternative investment strategies. The course covers the mechanics and markets for options, forward and futures contracts. forward and futures pricing, equity options and interest rate derivatives. Additionally, it covers alternative investments and alternative strategies including the use of derivatives in these strategies. Learners will be introduced to hedge funds, real assets, private capital, liquid alternatives and the use of derivatives and alternative investments in portfolio management.
3 credits
Prerequisites: ACCT545, ACCT550, ECON535, FINA515, FINA525, and FINA565
This course studies portfolio construction with a focus on asset allocation and diversification. Additional topics include assessing risk-adjusted performance of portfolios, security selection, performance measurement, and evaluation. The course involves an applied perspective of the “money manager,” including the development of the Investor Policy Statement and understanding objectives and constraints of different types of investors (individual, institutional, etc.).
3 credits
Prerequisites: All prior MSFA courses
This course provides comprehensive coverage of CFA Institutes Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct and builds on the learning outcomes embedded throughout the MSFA curriculum through two related components. One component involves a series of short, applied problem sets in CFA examination format focused on economic analysis, quantitative methods, financial statement analysis, corporate finance, fixed income analysis, portfolio management and ethics. The second component is a multi-part case-study developed throughout the course focused on advanced economic analysis, equity analysis, risk analysis and valuation.
Demand for Financial Analysts: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/financial-analysts.htm.
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