If you’ve read Jawwad Farid’s Reboot, then you know how his flaming startup Avicena that was supposed to sell easy to digest finance courses online. The good news is that Jawwad has been putting a lot of that content in the public domain for anyone. From a beginners guide to Corporate Finance to the demystification of derivatives – you might just find what you’re looking for here, saving the agony of a class-room finance course.

Below is the current inventory of online finance courses at the corporate finance e-learning portal.

Corporate Finance

• CORPORATE FINANCE: FIRST COURSE
• MASTER CASE: CORPORATE FINANCE: LLC OR C-CORP

• MASTER CASE: AMD: VALUATION AND PROJECTIONS: CASE GUIDE
• MASTER CASE: ELECTRONIC ARTS: CORPORATE FINANCE

Ratio analysis

• MASTER CLASS: RATIO ANALYSIS
• MASTER CASE: OFFICE DEPOT: RATIO ANALYSIS
• MASTER CASE: RATIO ANALYSIS: ODP AND STAPLES

Value at risk and risk management

• MASTER CLASS: CALCULATING VALUE AT RISK
• MASTER CLASS: RISK FOR THE OIL AND PETROCHEMICAL INDUSTRY

Credit analysis, process and case

• MASTER CLASS: CREDIT ANALYSIS
• MASTER CLASS: CREDIT PROCESS

• MASTER CASE: CREDIT PROCESS: BALDWIN PIANO

Treasury and derivative products

• MASTER CLASS: DERIVATIVE PRODUCTS
• THE DERIVATIVES CRASH COURSE FOR DUMMIES
• TREASURY OPERATIONS
• PRICING INTEREST RATE SWAPS – THE VALUATION AND MTM COURSE

• DERIVATIVE PRICING, RISK MANAGEMENT, FINANCIAL ENGINEERING – EQUATION REFERENCE
• INTEREST RATE OPTIONS – PRICING CAPS AND FLOORS

Asset Liability Management

• ASSET LIABILITY MANAGEMENT – THE ALM CRASH COURSE AND SURVIVAL GUIDE

Visitor profiles and demographics

• VISITORS PROFILE, US DEMOGRAPHICS, SEMRUSH TRAFFIC COST

• THE BEST OF JAWWAD FARID

Reboot is not just a book, its a mindset I was introduced to when I first met Jawwad. A mindset with a dangerously high viral load, so be aware.

In Fall 2003, I took a fateful course that didn’t quite change the course of my life (much to the disappointment of my instructor), but did radically rewire my perspective. From the course outline, Bootstrapping New Ventures seemed like an innocuous course taught by a mild-mannered instructor, just like Reboot sounds like a mild bed time read written by a chubby, geeky 30-something author. Except the chubby, geeky 30-something part, you’d be wrong on all counts. Yes, the book is as engaging as the course, but no milder than the instructor who brazenly shouted a certain four letter word in class, and unembarrassed, continued on.

If you’re in college or if you’re ten years into your plumbing career, feeling uninspired, edging towards a quarter life crisis, one thing I’ll guarantee is that Reboot will inspire you. Sometimes it takes a story of failure to jolt you out of your golden hand-cuffs.

I really don’t get my mentor. First, he highly recommends a book which essentially says most success in the markets is caused by randomness in the garb of specious mathematical models produced by MBAs who see invisible patterns where there are none. After I excitedly rush to Liberty to grab Fooled by Randomness for a whopping 2000 rupees, he hands me Pakistan Risk Review, which in his own words is: “…a dedicated periodical that quantifies the risk associated with Pakistani securities using a consistent, objective benchmark. ”

Consistent and objective? BENCHMARK!!!! Excuse me?

Is Jawwad losing it. The terrible loss of not having Nando’s close to his new office is perhaps too heavy for him to bear. That he is  deprived of the dripping seduction of the chocolate fudge cake might be causing this uncharacteristic lapse of reason. “Consistent and objective!!!” I panicked again. What should I do? Call the board? Talk to Fawzia?

I, of course, did none of the above. To drown the mounting concern over the well-being of my mentor, I picked up The Great War for Civilization to lift my mood. Not a good choice. Then, after a moment of deliberation, I picked up Pakistan Risk Review, hoping it would hold the soporfic magic of Business Recorder. SURPRISE!

It is actually an interesting and accessible read. While I’m inherently wary of “consistent and objective benchmarks”, I’ll leave that debate to Taleb and Jawwad. What PRR does provide is a rigorous analysis of Pakistani securities in language that any decent 10-grader can understand. Which ofcourse means that most bankers will struggle with it. For those of us with an interest in finance and the mind-bending volatility of Pakistani markets, Pakistan Risk Review is an interesting read.

If you write a polite email to Jawwad (jawwad -at- alchemya.com) expressing your undying interest in everything Risky (pun intended),  he will send you an executive summary of the inaugural issue of PRR.

-Adnan